


The Song of the Ravens

by Amberdreams, WinchesterPooja (chronic_potterphile)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU after s03e15, Allusions to Mental Disorders, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Amnesiac Dean, Anal Sex, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Blow Jobs, Bottom Castiel, Brother Feels, Castiel Whump, Castiel and Dean Winchester Live Together, Castiel and Dean in Love, Castiel/Dean Winchester First Time, Character Whumpage, Codependent Winchesters, Cunnilingus, Dean Whump, Declarations Of Love, Demon Blood Addict Sam Winchester, Demon Blood Addiction, Destiel - Freeform, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Epic Bromance, Episode: s03e15 Time Is On My Side, F/M, First Kiss, First Meetings, Fluff and Smut, Gen, Hand Jobs, Heavenly Hickeys, Hurt Castiel, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nudity, POV Dean Winchester, POV Outsider, POV Sam Winchester, Pairings Start in the Second Half of the Fic, Panic Attacks, Psychological Drama, Psychological Horror, Psychological Manipulation, Rimming, Sam Whump, Sam Winchester's Demonic Powers, Show-level Non-romantic Sam/Ruby, Shower Sex, Sick Sam Winchester, Smut, Suicidal Thoughts, Swearing, Top Dean, Unreliable Narrator, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-07-18
Packaged: 2018-04-09 23:46:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 73,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4368986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amberdreams/pseuds/Amberdreams, https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronic_potterphile/pseuds/WinchesterPooja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It all begins when Dean leaves his and Sam's motel room and doesn't return. Sam really wishes he hadn't let his brother go.</p><p>In another world, Dean slowly falls for an angel as he wonders why he feels like he's missing someone important. [AU after episode 3.15].</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Before I begin, I think I should mention that this fic contains Destiel and Sam/Ruby, both starting at the second half of the fic, but it all finally boils down to SamnDean. Mentioning it here so you won’t be disappointed! This fic is an alternate to season four. If you enjoy angst and emotions and drama and fluff and hurt/comfort and sacrifice, this fic is for you. If you like Sam manifesting powers and brotherly fallouts followed by broments, and Cas being adorable, you're in the right place. Sam/Ruby is show-level, meaning it's not going to be romantic, just smutty.
> 
> Please go through the tags carefully. I tried to be as systematic as possible, and they start with genre, moving to premise info, PoV and character info, warnings, smut info and some other tags I might have forgotten to mention in their correct places. I know there are a lot of them, but please go through them!
> 
>  **Acknowledgements:**  
>  I would like to thank, in no particular order,
> 
> My artist, Amberdreams, for putting up with me and this fic and for choosing this fic and making wonderful, wonderful art for it. Seriously, guys, tell me if you can ever stop looking at the [lovely pieces](http://amberdreams.livejournal.com/336107.html) she’s made!
> 
> My beta, [quickreaver/Cris](http://quickreaver.tumblr.com/), for making this readable and for not giving up on me or on this fic. 
> 
> Nomercles, who is awesome, and who was great support to me, apart from helping me tag all the warnings for this fic.
> 
> My two darling wifeys, [chesterbennington](http://chesterbennington.co.vu/)/Naila and [spnxbookworm/Sanjana](http://spnxbookworm.tumblr.com/), who have been there during the good times and have never left during the bad times, and who made this project so much more fun with all the late night word-count comparing and squeeing. Also, thanks to Naila for the ‘heavenly hickey’ and ‘Lucifer’s joint’ and Sanj for all your help with the Destiel and the last-minute cheering! *octopus hugs*
> 
> Nadia, my sister, who is never afraid to scare me and coax me when I’m procrastinating, and who’s just all-around awesome!
> 
> wendy, at spn_j2_bigbang because OMG YOU ARE SO AWESOME TO BE DOING THIS EVERY YEAR!

 

** **

 

 

 

**Book One**

 

 

  
**_April the seventeenth, 2008_**  
  
**_San Antonio, Texas_**  
  
_Fourteen days, one hour—_  
  
“Sam, you keeping up?”  
  
The moon is at its waxing cycle, sending silver beams through the dark, fluffy clouds that surround it, playing hide-and-seek with the stars. The cemetery is quiet—leaves rustling lightly in the cool breeze that’s blowing in, but silence enveloping all else.  The trees are few and far between, shading a couple of graves each, their leaves drooping and wilted, but still aplenty.   
  
Sam stops in his thoughts and looks up ahead at his brother, who shines his flashlight at a length of yellow police tape surrounding a shallow grave. The beam from the flashlight reflects on the yellow of the tape before falling on the dark mud.  
  
“Huh,” Dean says before going down on one knee, crouching at the edge of the grave, knees of his jeans brushing against the tiny heaps of soil.  
  
“Dean—” Sam rushes to his side to join him and crouches beside his brother.   
  
Dean rewards him with an exasperated look. “You wanna do the poking, while I stand guard?”   
  
Sam blinks at him and glances at the glowing dial on his watch.  _Fourteen days..._  
  
Dean raises an eyebrow. “Are you with me, man?”  
  
Hesitantly, Sam nods and looks at his watch again, but Dean stops him. “You got somewhere you have to be?”  
  
“I—” The reply turns into ash in Sam’s mouth, and he takes a deep breath. “Let’s look around and see if we find sulphur, or—”  
  
“Sam—” Dean almost looks like he knows why Sam’s staring at his watch.   
  
Sam swallows. “Don’t.”  
  
“Okay.” Dean lets it go. “You wanna stand guard, though? I don’t want the fugly getting us.”  
  
Sam nods, gets up, and glances at his watch again.  
  
_Fourteen days, one hour, twenty-two minutes and thirty-three seconds to go._  
  
Until Sam’s twenty-fifth birthday. And Dean’s Hell.  
  
0  
  
It is quiet inside the car. Dean drums his fingers mildly on the leather of the steering wheel while he manoeuvres the Impala over the cool blacktop. Sam watches his brother from the other side of the car, elbow resting on the edge of the open window as the wind blows away curls of hair from his temples and his face.   
  
_Thirteen days, twenty-three hours—_  
  
“So.” Dean interrupts Sam’s thought process. “You think it’s just a person doing all that?”  
  
The case they’re looking at here is about three weird, mysterious deaths around the town, all of them people who visited the cemetery to pay respects to their loved ones. At first, they never returned home, and searches were conducted around the place, the police unearthed all the missing peoples’ bodies, mutilated and taken apart, and in shallow graves of their own.  
  
Sam purses his lips. People can be worse than monsters, but something tingles in his gut when it comes to this case. He shakes his head. “Don’t think it’s a person.”  
  
“Well, there was no sulphur,” Dean says.   
  
“Could be a million other things,” Sam mutters.  
  
“What do you suggest?”  
  
“I don’t know, Dean.” Sam doesn’t mean to snap at his brother but it comes out that way. He turns away, trying to swallow down the anger, hurt and hopelessness that are hitting him all at once. He really doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t want to do this. He’s wasting his time on some stupid case when he could be browsing through websites on his laptop, looking for a way to get Dean out of the deal, but…  
  
_Thirteen days—_  
  
“We’ll do some searching in the morning,” Dean says again, breaking Sam’s countdown.   
  
Sam hates it when Dean does that. It’s almost as if Dean  _knows_. He just shrugs, though. “Okay.”  
  
They reach the motel in relative silence five minutes later, and Dean unlocks the door to their room as Sam shoots in, ready to retrieve his laptop and make up for lost time. There’s a coffee maker in the kitchenette and Sam is happy for that, because it will help him stay up.  
  
He feels Dean’s eyes following him as he digs sweats and an old tee from his bag before beginning to unbutton his long-sleeved shirt. After a moment of observation, Dean mimics Sam and they change in continued silence. Sam goes into the bathroom to brush his teeth and feels Dean following him with his gaze again, and wishes Dean wouldn’t do that.  
  
While he brushes his teeth, he listens to Dean putter about in the room. Dean has never been a silent roommate—always clattering about here and there, opening this drawer and that, fixing his guns, humming, whistling, singing, teasing Sam—  
  
Sam stops and stares at his reflection with his brush in his mouth, frothy blooms of toothpaste sitting at the corners of his lips. A little more than thirteen days are left for Dean to—for Dean to…  
  
Sam’s gut turns sour and he can’t bear to hold the brush anymore. He drops his hand as his stomach clenches, and he braces himself on the borders of the sink as a sudden burst of nausea sends him doubling over and spitting up toothpaste and bile and his anxiety and his hopelessness in great heaves.  
  
Dean’s dying. Dean’s dying. Dean’s going to Hell.  
  
_Thirteen days—_  
  
Sam retches again, fruitlessly, and the action sends tearing pain through his gut, making him retch again, hideously, violently, again and again—  
  
His heart is going too fast and he’s shaking.  
  
_Dean is dying._  
  
He hears a voice from behind him. “Sam!”  
  
Sam clasps a palm over his eyes and retches again, feeling the wetness of tears slip between his fingers as he hears his brother enter the cramped bathroom. There are hands on his shoulders and Dean’s all over him. “Sammy,” he says, voice panicked. “What? What is it? Talk to me.”   
  
But Sam doesn’t reply. He just wants Dean to leave like he’s going to anyway, because, because...  
  
“Are you hurt?” Dean questions him frantically. “Please tell me, man. Let me help.”  
  
Sam shakes his head, his breath hitching, because Dean can’t help. He  _so_  can’t help. And this time, Dean seems to get it.   
  
“Come on, just relax,” he says, placing a hand on Sam’s back. “Relax, Sam, it’s gonna be okay.”  
  
No, it’s not. Sam gags again, a sob ripping out of him as he bends over to hide his face from his brother. Dean pats his back again, runs a hand through Sam’s hair. “Hey, hey. Stop.” Dean pauses. “Please.” The last word shakes his voice like a breeze rippling the sails on a boat, and the calloused hands on Sam are gentler.  
  
The water starts running and Dean’s out of the bathroom for a moment. Sam feels a chill tumble down his spine, but Dean doesn’t keep him waiting for long; his warm presence is by Sam’s side in a heartbeat.  
  
“You’re gonna be okay,” Dean says, and Sam feels a glass of water being pushed into his hand. He rinses and sips.  
  
Dean cups his neck. “You’re stressed. Time to sleep. Come on.”  
  
Sam’s face is stiff with dried tears and his eyes and throat are scratchy and Dean’s tugging him to the bedroom by his forearm, muttering comforting nonsense until Sam’s laid out on a lumpy mattress that sighs under his weight. The light switches off and a blanket falls over Sam, but he struggles. He can’t sleep. He doesn’t want to sleep. He has work to do. There’s no time.   
  
There’s no time.  
  
_Thirteen—_  
  
Fingers card through Sam’s hair, inviting sleep to take him to its realm. Sam’s about to count again when Dean speaks. “Hey, Sam?” Sam turns to his brother, who seems to be glaring at him through the darkness. “Stop that.”  
  
Dean continues his ministrations until at last, Sam unwillingly falls asleep.  
  
0  
  
_Thirteen days, eleven hours, fifty-three minutes, fifteen seconds._  
  
Sam’s been counting down each minute since Dean made the deal.   
  
It’s not a healthy habit—and he knows it isn’t, but he can’t help himself. Dean hates it and he doesn’t say it out loud, but Sam knows that he does.  
  
Sam, however, counts. Because he has to. He has to remember exactly how much time he has in hand to save his brother. But he’s starting to think now, that maybe he can’t.  
  
Each time Sam watches the hands of the clock crawl by in their twice-daily, redundant circles, he feels a little part of him die.   
  
Sometimes, he finds himself hoping that maybe all these little parts will just form a big part, and kill him off altogether.   
  
He looks at his watch and observes more seconds tick by, his heart beating against his chest at twice the speed. Dean is still going to Hell. Sam needs to do something about it.   
  
It’s bright and clear outside, and a warm breeze ripples the shabby curtains as it blows in through the open windows. Sam runs a hand through his hair and opens a new tab on his browser. Dean’s in the bathroom, singing his way through a shower, which means Sam can quit researching their current case and continue looking for a way to negate Dean’s deal.  
  
_Thirteen days, eleven hours, fifty minutes, three seconds._  
  
Time is speeding at an irrational pace.  
  
0  
  
It’s half-past noon by the time Dean’s finished showering. He let Sam sleep in and asked him how he was feeling today once he was up, big-brother mode on high-alert and ready to be utilised in tending to Sam’s every need.  
  
Sam knows that Dean is worried. This is not the first time that the whole ordeal has gotten to him, and he knows it’s not the last, either. Dean knows that too, and Sam can see and feel his brother’s guilt at that.  
  
Presently, Sam glances at the computer screen with its unsatisfactory results for his plans for Dean, and then back at his brother who emerges from the bathroom with a towel draped around his waist, and goes on to unearth a pair of jeans from his duffel.   
  
Dean looks up at Sam midway through retrieving a t-shirt. “You up to eating?”  
  
No, but if Sam doesn’t eat, Dean will only feel worse about it. Swallowing, Sam brings a hand up to rub at his eyes. “Kinda?” he lies.  
  
Dean nods as he dons the jeans, zippers them up, and reaches for his shirt. “What did you get?”  
  
“Huh?”  
  
“The case,” Dean clarifies. “You find anything?”  
  
Sam licks his lips. “It could be a spirit.”  
  
“Would they even be that patient?” Dean asks him. “I mean, to kill and cut and bury? Kinda slow and overtly gory for a spirit, don’t you think?”  
  
“I don’t know, I—” Sam struggles to change tabs as Dean begins to walk over to the table, but thanks to all the porn-browsing Dean’s always doing, the screen freezes on Sam’s current page about demon deals. And that’s exactly what his brother sees when he bends over and looks at the screen from behind Sam’s shoulder.  
  
For a moment, nobody moves or speaks. Dean uncurls himself slowly and moves back a step as he clears his throat. “I’ll get us some lunch. You uh… you look for stuff about this case once the laptop unfreezes, okay?”  
  
Sam doesn’t look at him when he nods, a tightness already rising in his chest. How could Dean do this? How could Dean have been so selfish about it all?  
  
“You with me?” Dean asks him, and Sam hears the jingle of keys.  
  
Sam nods again and clears his throat. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll just try and get it running again.”  
  
“Cool.”  
  
There’s a pause, a moment of silence, and Sam wishes Dean would just leave, because the lump in his throat is getting bigger and bigger,  
  
_Thirteen days, eleven hours, twenty-six minutes, twelve—_  
  
“Sammy?”  
  
“Please leave.” Sam’s voice is hoarse and tight.  
  
_Thirteen days, eleven hours, twenty-five minutes, fifty-eight seconds._  
  
“Sam.”  
  
He hears footsteps, and there’s a comforting presence behind him.  
  
_Thirteen days—_  
  
“Sam, look here, man.”  
  
Sam swallows, and his eyes are hot, but he shakes his head. Behind him, he feels Dean hesitate, and there’s a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”  
  
No, he’s not. And that’s what infuriates Sam the most. Dean has no right to be this way— _absolutely_  no right. He can’t be the one doing all this and then act like he cares. Because he doesn’t care. He can’t, he  _can’t_ —  
  
Sam’s thoughts trail away when Dean’s hand squeezes his shoulder, once, and then another time. His hand falls away.  “Do you want to come along to the diner?” he asks Sam. “Get some fresh air? You’ve been on that thing since—”  
  
“No, you go ahead,” Sam replies blandly, pressing on the power button of his laptop to get it to forcefully shut down so it can reboot.  
  
“Come on,” Dean says, tugging at Sam. “Come with me, Sammy. You were sick last night. You’ve been researching since you woke up. You’ll feel better if you just step out.”  
  
Sam shakes his head, and drags a sleeve across his eyes, before pushing back his chair to get up. He turns to Dean, who backs away, and then follows Sam as he makes his way to the kitchenette.  
  
“What do you want, Dean?” Sam asks him, rounding on his brother to face him for once and for all. “What do you want me to do?”  
  
Dean looks at him, a little crestfallen, plenty worried with his forehead wrinkling and lips pursing as he shrugs. “Be okay?”  
  
Sam just shakes his head and snorts. “Sure.” He opens the mini-fridge and pulls a bottle of Budweiser out of the six-pack they’d brought along. Dean automatically accepts it from Sam’s hand and undoes the cap with his ring before taking a gulp and giving it back to Sam.  
  
There’s another moment of silence, and Sam just looks at his brother while he drinks. The beer is good, and the chill mixed with the warmth as it goes down is very pleasant. “You should leave,” he tells Dean.   
  
“I just wanna—”  
  
“I’m good.” Sam refuses to talk about it further, but Dean’s hand is on his arm again. Sam looks at him and shrugs it away. “No need to get touchy-feely, Dean. It’s not like you anyway. Go on. I’ll be here.”  
  
“Okay,” Dean replies, apparently having given up. He grabs his coat and walks over to the door, the Impala’s keys jingling in his hand. “Get the info ready while I’m gone,” he says, and then he’s out of the motel room.  
  
He never does come back. Not really.  
  
0  
  
Human beings, through their books and movies and dramatisations, have always depicted life in a sense that it’s not. They talk of it like it’s epic and eventful; like everyone has a definite set of happy days after the sad ones, complete with their own personal heroes or heroines to save the day, the finales of their stories tied up in a shiny bow with either a fairy-tale happy ending, or an outright Shakespearean tragedy, with the perfect last words and exits.   
  
What no one writes about are the people who never find their heroes, or even if they do find them, end up losing them before they can draw their strength from them. They don’t talk about the people who never find their answers. They don’t mention the ones who survive without happiness, living day-to-day, putting one foot in front of the other, hoping again and again but never finding hope. They don’t write about the imperfect final words—the ones that are said without expectation of them being the last words.  
  
Sam wonders what he would have said to Dean, had he known what was coming. He wonders if he should have recorded the exact manner and tone in which Dean said those words. Because, those were, technically, Dean’s final words to him. Because, in a  _lot_  of ways that matter, though not in every way, this is the last that Sam and Dean will see of each other.  
  
They will meet again, in a way that’s not sufficient for two people who’ve spent their lives together; or for brothers, who live and die and spin their worlds, their hearts and their souls, around each other. They will meet, but nothing about it will be  _nearly_  enough. Although, when they do see each other again, they won’t care about any of this. Every moment will be eternal, every smile meaningful, and every jab amusing and annoying all at once. They will be what everyone knows them as— _Sam n’ Dean, Dean n’ Sam_ —hunters, who can bring the world down; brothers, who never learned to let go of each other.  
  
Sam won’t forget Dean’s last words to him. He might forget a lot of things about how they were said, and Dean’s expression while he spoke them, but Sam will never forget the actual words. And, every day, he will live under the hope that Dean hasn’t forgotten either.  
  
Years from now, Sam will curse himself for forgetting the exact sound of Dean’s voice—the roughness to it when Dean is casually talking, and the smooth, placating tenor when Dean is being gentle, and Dean’s laugh, and his crappy singing… and just…  _Dean_.  
  
Years from now, Sam will curse himself for letting Dean go.  
  
0  
  
Sam reckons he should have realised something was wrong when he called Dean to ask for extra pickles and couldn’t reach his brother. A recorded voice tells him that Dean’s number doesn’t exist, and Sam puts the phone down, wondering what new network error this is, before returning to look for ways to get Dean out of his deal. He knows Dean will expect some research on the case too, but fuck it—Sam isn’t going to bother anymore.  
  
He hits a few promising searches, the blue and white lights on the laptop display piercing his eyes and digging a crater in his already sore brain, and Sam suddenly feels tired as hell. Absently wondering what’s taking Dean so long, he climbs into bed and pulls the thin blanket over himself, knowing Dean will wake him up when he’s back anyway. Until then, just a little bit of rest…  
  
_“Sam Winchester.”_  
  
Sam’s eyes open with a start, his hand reaching under the pillow for his gun.  
  
“That won’t help you.”  
  
The voice is hoarse, androgynous, accompanied by a putrid, rotting smell that clouds Sam’s nostrils, causing him to cough. The room is bright from the afternoon sun and almost every corner is illuminated, but Sam can’t see anyone there.   
  
He coughs again, gags, sitting up to look for the owner as he stares at the planes of the walls and the tacky wallpaper, trying to make out the scarce shadows, but finding no one. He raises his gun. Goosebumps are rising all over him. There is something very, very wrong around here, and—  
  
That’s when Sam sees it. A pair of eyes—yellowing, sunken, and… decomposed. The decaying odour hits his nostrils again and is gone the next moment. The eyes are gone too.  
  
And just like that, Sam knows that whatever was here, in this room, has left. Has it really, though? He doesn’t quite believe his instinct for once, and reaches for his gun, cocking it and holding it with his finger on the trigger. “Dean?”   
  
There’s no answer.  
  
Sam gets up from the bed, socked feet padding on the stained carpet, gun still at the ready. “Dean, you here?”  
  
_Sammy._  
  
“Dean?”  
  
_Sam._  
  
The putrid smell is back. “Dean, where are you?” Sam whispers, and the lone bathroom light flickers.  
  
_Sammy._  
  
The eyes are back, hollow and yellowing, and that’s when Sam notices the color of the irises.  
  
_Green._  
  
“DEAN!”  
  
Sam sits up on his bed, sweat pouring down his face in rivers.   
  
This was a dream?  
  
Fuck, this was all a fucking  _dream_.  
  
Sam feels like he’s choking. His heart thumps against his chest, his parasympathetic responses still not getting the memo that it was all just a nightmare. His hands shake, and he tries to catch his breath. But Sam’s lungs are closed up and he can’t breathe.   
  
He pulls in air, his chest heaving.  _It was a nightmare._  
  
Two breaths.  _It was a nightmare._  
  
Inhale _. It was a nightmare._ Exhale _. It was a nightmare._ Repeat.  
  
Where is Dean, though?  
  
“Dean?” Sam calls out shakily, once he’s regained his bearings. He looks around, realising that the other bed and the bathroom are both unoccupied. Evidently, Dean isn’t back yet.   
  
Frowning, Sam takes a few more breaths, waiting for the choking sensation to pass before getting out of bed. And that’s when he casts a glance at the clock, and freezes.  
  
Dean had left at about quarter-to-one to get food from the diner.  
  
It is now half-past four.  
  
Sam overslept, and Dean hasn’t been back in almost four hours.  
  
0  
  
Dean doesn’t come back and Sam gets the same message every time he calls Dean—that the number doesn’t exist. And that’s not possible. Even if Dean’s phone got stolen and he’s actually still all right, and just out of contact, it’s not possible for his number to not exist. For one, because it existed just hours ago, and secondly because if the SIM card had been taken out and blocked, the message would say that the phone is switched off. Phone numbers are recycled. Sam is aware of that. As and when a number is out of use and is not reclaimed by the user, it’s appointed to someone else, and it doesn’t really go out of rotation. That is why blocking is encouraged when the SIM gets lost in the first place. So your name is clear of that number—for legal purposes, like not getting wrongly caught in a crime.  
  
So what’s going on here? Did Dean just…  _leave_?  
  
Sam’s heart misses a beat. Dean wouldn’t do that, would he? He wouldn’t just leave and do something stupid?  _And_ —Sam stops in his thoughts as he looks around, wondering how he didn’t notice this earlier.  
  
Dean’s things are missing; and it’s not only his daily stuff. Sam peers out of the window and the Impala is gone too.


	2. Chapter 2

  
"Pick up. Come on, Dean, pick up your phone.”  
  
Sam’s breaths are racing at top speed as he pulls the cupboard open with one hand, holding his phone to his ear with the other. Dean’s duffel, which Sam distinctly remembers him shoving into the cupboard, is missing. There’s no clothes left—nothing in the bathroom, and it’s almost as though Dean was never here.   
  
Dean  _was_  here, though. Sam knows that.  
  
Dean’s alternate phone keeps ringing, and then a polite woman tells Sam that the owner isn’t answering—something that Sam didn’t need to go to college to figure out, and he cancels the call before throwing his phone away, frustrated. It lands on the floor and the back cover flies off, plastic making a light sound of hitting ground as the battery skids out and across the floor. Sam looks at the gadget for a moment, and sighs. No. He can’t get angry. Not right now. Dean could be in trouble. Because, otherwise, Dean would have said something. He would have left a note or something… anything…  
  
Sam runs a hand over his face before squatting down and starting to put his phone back together. The moment he switches it on, it starts to ring, and relief washes over every cell on Sam’s body as he takes the call. “Dean?”  
  
“No, man.” The voice is strange, and male. “And who the hell are you?”  
  
Sam frowns, trying to make out the owner of the voice. He swallows.   
“Uh. Is... is this—Dean?”  
  
“What, you stupid or something? I  _said_  I’m not Dean. Now stop calling this damned number, ‘cause your boyfriend seems to have changed it and not told you.”  
  
The call gets cancelled from the other side, leaving Sam in silence. He sits there, listening to his own breathing as he goes through his contacts, not knowing what he wants to find. Dean’s numbers don’t exist, and the one that does is with someone else. No. No, there’s something very bad going on here. Sam needs to—  
  
He takes a breath. Okay, he first needs to find out who he just spoke to. And then he needs to try and get a hold of whatever new number Dean is using. And then he needs to kill Dean.  
  
_You gonna send me to hell already, Sammy?_  
  
Sam freezes at Dean’s voice in his head. Oh God. Oh God, Dean couldn’t have gone to Hell ahead of schedule. He wouldn’t do that. Sam knows that Dean wanted to be saved, and he knows that Dean will fight until his last living second, but he won’t run away from all this. Not like this. Sam knows Dean. He’s known his brother twenty-five years. That’s got to count for something. Right?   
  
_Right?_  
  
It's got to. Sam knows it has got to.    
  
He exhales a shaky breath as he slides back against the bed, and feels the mattress cushion his back. His thoughts are going in circles, all half-formed, incoherent, and Sam doesn’t know what to do—what to think. His very chest is seizing up at the thought of Dean being in fatal trouble, and Sam doesn’t know if he can do anything about it.  
  
But he will, and he has to.  
  
He has to.  
  
_Thirteen days_ ,  _three hours, forty-three minutes and twenty-eight seconds._  
  
0  
  
“I don’t know who you’re talking about. I’ve never seen him before.”  
  
Sam holds in a frustrated sigh as he looks straight at the acne-ridden face of the kid at the motel desk. “You were the one who checked us in,” he says. “You don’t remember?”  
  
“Another dude with you who looks like  _that_?” the kid replies, pointing at the photo on the desk. “ _Believe_  me, I’d have noticed, man.” He flashes a sheepish grin at Sam.  
  
“He was right here,” Sam grits out, pointing to his left, where he remembers Dean had stood while signing them in. “He was standing with me.”  
  
The teenager blinks and looks as if he’s drawn a blank. Sam hangs his head and sighs before reaching for his pocket. “Okay,” he says. “I know what you’re after.” He pulls out a twenty and slides it across the desk. “Now tell me. Did you see him leave, or come in at all today?”  
  
The boy stares at the picture on the desk again—the picture of Sam and Dean, sitting on the Impala’s hood with a beer each, with Bobby’s salvage yard landscaping behind them. He shakes his head. “Told you. Far as I remember, you came in alone. An’ I didn’t see anyone walk in or leave today. You’re the only guest at this motel and I’d have known if there was another guy, man.”  
  
Sam clenches his jaw, holding back the annoyance that threatens to fly out unbridled. He can’t do this right now. He doesn’t have the patience for a pain-in-the-ass teenager on top of everything else. At the same time, he needs to get answers out of this boy—if Dean even entered the motel after Sam fell asleep, and it’s important, and he knows, he  _knows_ that this kid saw Dean when they checked in.   
  
“He entered us under his name,” Sam reminds the kid. “Seriously, you don’t remember?”  
  
“Gosh, if I remembered every name that was in there…” the kid mutters, rolling his eyes before reaching for the battered record book. “Here, find the name. Look for yourself.”  
  
Sam pulls the register close and quickly leafs through the cheap pages, feeling them slide against his fingers in low rustles. At long last, he finds the date that he and Dean had checked in, two days ago, and scans for Dean’s alias. Dean is supposed to be Jim McMinn, accompanied by his brother, Harry.   
  
He sees the name, McMinn, but stops there.  
  
_McMinn, Harry._  
  
But that’s Sam’s alias. They’d used Dean’s credit card, and signed up with Dean’s name.  
  
No.  
  
Sam looks at it again.  _McMinn, Harry._  
  
How is this possible?  
  
“You find it?” Sam looks up at the boy, who’s been staring at him all along. The teen peers in, at where Sam’s finger is. “You’re McMinn, right?”  
  
“Yeah, but my brother Jim—”  
  
“Look, man,” the kid says, “I helped you out the best way I could. I’m sayin’ I didn’t see this guy. Never seen him in my life. As far as I know, you came in alone. I dunno what dope you smokin’, but stop pesterin’ me.”  
  
Sam blinks once at the boy, and a second time, and swallows. God. What is going on? What the fuck is going on? Is this some kind of nightmare? Oh, God…  
  
He begins to walk back slowly to his room. Okay, maybe he forgot that he was the one who used his credit card (although a very vivid memory says otherwise), but maybe, maybe he did, and maybe the kid at the desk is doped (because Sam’s pretty sure he smelled weed) but something’s really, really sticky around here.  
  
And it doesn’t help that Sam’s gut tingles with every thought of it, as though something’s about to go terribly, disastrously wrong.  
  
0  
  
Bobby is confused when Sam calls him at midnight.   
  
“Bobby?” Sam breathes into the phone, at his surrogate father’s grumbling, sleepy voice.  
  
_“Dammit, boy, I decide to turn in early one night, and all hell has to break loose with you two.”_  
  
“How did you—?”  
  
_“Yer not talking in that strained tone ‘cause you’re constipated, are yeh?”_  
  
“Dean’s missing,” Sam says without preamble.  
  
_“What?!”_  
  
“I – I can’t—” Sam’s voice catches in his throat and he just wants to curl up and whine and have someone reassure him about everything. But he holds on and swallows. “I can’t get through to him, Bobby.”  
  
_“He not takin’ calls?”_  
  
“No, it’s saying that his number doesn’t exist.”  
  
_“What? That—”_  
  
“I know,” Sam interrupts him. “I know that wouldn’t happen even if his phone got stolen.”  
  
_“His other numbers?”_  
  
“All the same. One belongs to this guy—he’s up in Ohio, and his name is Ben Richards. He’s not even associated with us or to hunting in any way. And,” Sam pauses, throat tightening, “there’s no way in hell that they recycled even a blocked number that quick, Bobby.”  
  
_“I know what you’re talking about, boy.”_ Now Bobby sounds worried, too.  _“Where are you?”_  
  
“San Antonio.”  
  
_“Texas?”_  
  
“Y-Yeah.”  
  
_“Okay, hold on, I’m coming.”_  
  
“But it’s gonna take you a while.”  
  
_“Yeah,”_  Bobby says, “ _unfortunately. But you find that idjit by then and smack him up-side the head for me, will ya? I’ll come there to help you two ‘cause with the… with—_ ” he hesitates, and Sam knows that he’s thinking about Hell, too.  
  
“I know, Bobby.”  
  
There’s silence. And then,  _“How you doin’ Sam?”_  
  
Sam scoffs a laugh. “Awesome.”  
  
_“Suspected as much. Keep your head on straight, yeah? Don’t get yerself into trouble now.”_  
  
“More trouble than this, Bobby?” Sam asks softly. “Aren’t I already screwed?”  
  
_“Your brother just wants you to be safe.”_  
  
“I know. I know, Bobby.”  
  
_“He’s doing this for ya,”_  Bobby goes on,  _“and it’s damn right killing him seeing you like this.”_  
  
“Like what?”  
  
_“Not dealin’.”_  
  
Sam sighs. “And what does he expect? A champagne party?”  
  
_“He just wants you not to worry yerself sick, kid. He wants you to be okay.”_  
  
“I’m fine.”  
  
_“Yeah, and he called me last night about your fineness.”_  
  
Sam swallows, and runs a hand through his hair. “I – I didn’t eat right, Bobby, and my head was aching, and—”  
  
_“Apparently, you’re not eating at all.”_  
  
“I am,” Sam says indignantly. “That’s a lie—what he said. And can we please worry about Dean? ‘Cause I’m not the one missing here.”  
  
Bobby lets out a breath of air.  _“Okay, boy. But…”_  he pauses,  _“I think you should wait until morning to start looking.”_  
  
“Why?”  
  
_“It’s less than two weeks, Sam,”_  Bobby says gently.  _“Ya ever think yer brother wanted some alone time?”_  
  
“And he booked without telling me?” Sam asks him. He knows  _exactly_  how much time is left. He knows exactly how scared Dean is, of this whole thing—of going to Hell. But if Dean did really leave without saying anything, that’s a really shitty thing to do.  
  
_“He’s dealin’ with a lot more than we think he is,”_  Bobby replies.  _“And I know it’s harder than it looks, and we should give him a break.”_  
  
“Really? You think he’s just gone… for some air?”  
  
_“Yeah, son. Probably gettin’ shitfaced in a bar somewhere and shacking up with a girl or two. Wouldn’t put it past him. I think he’ll be back when the sun’s up. You just see.”_  
  
“Okay.” Sam’s gut twists, but he nods. Maybe Bobby is right. Fuck, he wants to believe that Bobby is right. That everything will be fine in the morning. Like Dean always said.  
  
_“And I’m leavin’ now anyway,”_  Bobby continues.  _“Will reach you boys by tomorrow evening. That good?”_  
  
“Yeah. Thanks, Bobby.”  
  
_“If he’s not in by morning, start looking.”_  
  
“I will.”  
  
_“Okay, kid.”_  Bobby pauses.  _“Keep your nose clean. Eat something, get some rest, and call me in the morning.”_  
  
“Yeah, Bobby.”  
  
_“I’ll see ya.”_  There’s a moment, and the line disconnects.   
  
Sam sets his phone down, his eyes burning as loneliness sets in. He hopes, oh, how he hopes that Bobby is right. How he hopes that Dean will be back in the morning.  
  
He sighs. He hasn’t eaten anything today. He can’t think of it—not when Dean’s gone, and there’s a looming feeling in his head that something’s really wrong. But, he will get through the night, and hope for a new morning. He will look forward to things being okay.   
  
Just like he always does.   
  
Just the way that Dean taught him to do.  
  
_Please be back in the morning, Dean. I fucking can’t do this alone, man. Please._  
  
0  
  
A raven perches on the ledge of the motel window, and Sam spots it as he carries his laptop over to his bed. The sun is long gone, and the moon dances between clouds, shrouding everything in blackness for long intervals as it does. And Sam doesn’t understand what a diurnal bird is doing outside its nest at this time of night.  
  
He sets up his laptop, and the raven doesn’t move. He browses a few websites, and the raven still doesn’t move.  
  
When Sam gets up to look at it, another large raven arrives, swooping down and tucking in its giant wings as it lands beside the first. Two pairs of eyes level at Sam, unmoving, unshaken.   
  
The hairs on the back of Sam’s neck prickle. “Shoo,” he says, half-heartedly waving a hand at the birds, but they stay. He opens the window and waves his hand threateningly again, but the ravens are unperturbed.  
  
Sam gives up, starts retreating, when he hears a voice behind him.   
  
_Muninn._  
  
The voice is soft, a silky, caressing breath of a whisper in Sam’s ear. He whips about, goosebumps all over him, and only just catches the ravens spreading their wide wings, taking off one after the other, camouflaging into the night sky as they leave.  
  
0  
  
The sunrays slink in through the dirty, crimson curtains and right onto Sam’s face when he wakes up the next morning. His head pounds in a slow, steady throb, and his eyes feel pasty and gritty when he tries to open them.  
  
Oh God, what a terrible night he’s had.  
  
He rolls over, scrunching his eyes against the brightness, pulling his blankets around him as he does so, and thinks about the previous night. Dean never came back, Sam never got to contact him, and, by the looks of it—Sam squints at the bed next to his—Dean still isn’t back.  
  
It was difficult to coax himself to sleep. And how could he, with so much crap going on? How could he abandon Dean like that?  
  
But, then again, maybe Bobby is right. Dean is going to Hell, after all, and unless Sam does something to save him, he most certainly will. He must want some time alone, a little bit of time away from it all.  
  
Well, he can have all the time he wants. As long as he calls.  
  
Sam reaches for his phone and checks it. There are no new messages or missed calls. There’s basically nothing from Dean, and Sam doesn’t feel better about it today, like Bobby said he would. This just makes it suck on a whole new level—because Dean’s been missing almost twenty-four hours now.  
  
That’s when it hits him. It’s almost a day. Almost twenty-four whole hours.  
  
Can Sam involve the police? Can he do that? They might not know about the supernatural, but if a Missing Persons report is what's required right now, Sam can most definitely use the helping hand. Okay, so he and Dean are supposed to be dead, but he can use aliases. Because as long as he can get Dean back—  
  
He stops in his thoughts.  
  
He doesn’t even know that Dean’s in trouble yet.  
  
However, just the  _thought_  makes his gut tingle again, as though he’s wrong.   
  
That’s when he hears something. Something that comes just as suddenly as it goes, making goosebumps rise all over his body.  
  
_Sammy._  
  
Sam looks around, at the whispered voice. “Dean?” He blinks, and thinks he sees someone move at the far end of the room.  
  
_Sammy._  
  
“Dean?” Sam gets out of his bed, legs tangling in the covers but he kicks off the sheets, rushing to the source of the voice. “Dean?”  
  
But there’s nothing. Sam grabs his flashlight and the EMF. There’s still nothing around, and everything looks as quiet and normal as ever. Sam knows that nothing about this is normal.  
  
“Dean?” he calls again, moving to check in the bathroom and behind the curtains. He sweeps the room again for EMF, and checks the salt lines. He even tries pinching himself to make sure that he isn’t dreaming.  
  
But this is all real: Dean’s absence, the motel room, and the curious case of the non-existent numbers, and Sam’s either hallucinating or the shit’s deeper than he thought.  
  
He stares at the spot where he saw the shadow, ponders for a bit, and then goes to grab his phone. His chest is tight and his breaths are racing as he dials. Finally, after two long rings…  
  
_“Sam.”_  
  
“Bobby,” Sam whispers. “How far out are you?”  
  
_“I’ll say another six hours.”_  
  
“Please come here quick.”  _I am scared._  
  
_“What is it, boy?”_  If Bobby’s voice wasn’t serious before, it is now.  
  
“Something’s happened,” Sam says.  
  
_“How—?”_  
  
“I just… I know.”  
  
_“Vision?”_  
  
“No,” Sam says. “Something’s happened to Dean, Bobby. Something really bad. And I can feel it. We have to find him. We have to find him  _now_.”

0

Sam thinks he’s never been so restless his whole life. He’s bouncing his leg repeatedly, biting on a nail, and his gaze keeps swivelling over to the phone, hoping that it will ring. Hoping that—  
  
_Dean will call._  
  
Sam’s checked everywhere. Everywhere in the town that he and Dean have visited. The grocery store, a small diner they’d frequented, even the victims’ houses, and no one seems to remember Dean at all. They even swear that they’ve never seen him their whole lives. And while Sam understands that maybe the kid at the reception was doped, or not in his right mind when he'd said he hadn’t seen Dean, it is impossible that no one remembers him at all.  
  
Sam can’t deny, though, that they have a whole demon army on their asses, so it would probably even be fair to assume that there are fifty hunts in one place—if they’re all demon-related.  
  
Demons don’t play like this, though. They don’t make a person disappear. If they’d kidnapped Dean, they’d be straight about it, and make their threats and demands. They wouldn’t prolong anything like this.   
  
It’s not demons.   
  
Who, or  _what_  is it, then?  
  
Sam glances at his wristwatch, then back at his phone. Bobby had called a few minutes ago, saying he was almost there. Why isn’t Bobby here yet, then? Had he meant he was almost in the town, or had he meant that he was almost at the motel? Nothing could have happened to Bobby, right? That’s impossible. Impossible.  
  
A sudden knock at the door jolts Sam from his thoughts. He grabs his gun, hiding it behind his back as he slowly walks to the door, and opens it a crack to see Bobby standing outside with a loaded bag, a hand scratching at his greying beard.  
  
With a sigh, Sam throws open the door and stands back, only to have Bobby come in and pull him into a hug.  
  
Sam lets out a shaky breath and hugs Bobby back, feeling fatherly arms around him. He lets himself dissolve into the warmth for a moment, before they pull away. Bobby gives him a nod, goes ahead and deposits his bag at the foot of Dean’s previously occupied bed, and turns around.  
  
“Let’s go find that idjit brother of yours.”  
  
0  
  
“So what is it that you were hunting?”  
  
Bobby sits at the dining table, leafing through the stack of papers that Sam has provided about the case and the victims. He reads briefly through each of the notes, and raises confused eyes at Sam. “The bodies were found in shallow graves, mutilated?”  
  
“Yeah,” Sam replies. “Dean and I reckoned it was a spirit.”  
  
“Or a demon.”  
  
“You think so?” Sam asks him.  
  
“Could be.” Bobby shrugs, as he takes off his dirty ball-cap to run a hand through his hair. “Although, I gotta say. I haven’t read this kind of lore before, so I’ve gotta look.”  
  
Sam nods and sits down on his bed. He picks at the bedspread, drawing tiny circles on the thin cotton, before turning back to Bobby.  “I don’t think this is the thing that’s got Dean.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“Because the victims didn’t vanish into thin air. People even apart from their family members remembered them. Dean…”  
  
“He’s not a local around here, Sam.”  
  
Sam shakes his head. “It’s weird, though. No one even remembers  _seeing_  him.  _Someone_ —at least one or two of the people who we talked to, as feds, should have remembered him.”  
  
Bobby ponders at it for a moment. “You’re right.”  
  
“So…” Sam sighs. “I don’t even know where to start—what to… where Dean—” His breath hitches, and his eyes burn traitorously as he looks away from Bobby.  
  
“Your brother is going to be fine, Sam,” Bobby replies gently. “We’ll find him. You speak to the police yet?”  
  
Sam sniffs and shakes his head, pressing his palms together nervously. “No. I d-don’t know whether to go to them with an alias, or…” He wipes at his eyes, and waits for Bobby to suggest a resolution, because he really, really can’t do this alone, and he just wishes Dean were here, at least now, and fuck, fuck,  _fuck_ …  
  
“I’ll check with them,” Bobby says, the sound of crinkling papers reaching Sam’s ears as Bobby smooths the pages on the table. “You stay here and get some food in you. I’ll go talk to the police.”  
  
“Dean’s just disappeared, Bobby. He’s just disappeared off the face of this earth. He never seems to have even existed for anyone, and—”  
  
“No, he hasn’t disappeared,” Bobby reasons, as Sam forces himself to look at him, blinking past his tears. “Sam, you know he exists.  _I_  know he exists, and I suspect he’s still around in a lot of minds. What I don’t get is why he’s gone like this…”  
  
“Maybe because they don’t want us finding him,” Sam says, a miserable burn settling in his gut as he thinks of it. “If Dean was never there, how will we find him?”  
  
It makes sense. Perfect sense. Kidnapping Dean, casting some amnesia over everyone who could be a key to finding him, so that only the people who know him can suffer…  
  
It’s a perfect way to poke at them all where it hurts the most.  
  
Bobby seems to be thinking it too, Sam observes, as he watches him cock a gun and tuck it into his waistband. “Balls,” he whispers, as he pulls his shirt down.  
  
“Yeah,” Sam replies.  
  
“Well, then.” Bobby adjusts his cap. “Whoever’s screwin’ with us did it wrong, son. ’Cause as long as  _we_  remember him, we ain’t letting him go.” He looks into Sam’s eyes, holding his gaze. “Right?”  
  
Sam manages a smile. “Right.”  
  
Bobby’s eyes soften. “Order some dinner. I’ll talk to the police, and you call Ellen and Jo.”  
  
“Okay, Bobby.”  
  
Sam watches Bobby leave, feeling the loneliness shrink away just a little bit as hope filters its way in through his chest. Whoever’s got Dean will not win. No, they can play whatever games they want, but Sam will not let them win. And, by the looks of it, neither will Bobby.  
  
0  
  
Ellen is shocked when Sam asks her about Dean.   
  
_“’Course I remember your brother, hon,”_  she says.  _“Why d’you ask?”_  
  
“I just…” Sam hesitates.  
  
_“Spill.”_  
  
“Ellen, he’s missing.” Sam picks at a fraying bit of plastic on his phone but stops it when he realises what he’s doing.  
  
Ellen pauses.  _“Okay. How long?”_  
  
“Since yesterday. I tried looking for him in the town. No one even remembers having seen him before—not the people we talked to as feds, not the kid at the motel reception, no one.”  
  
_“That’s odd.”_  
  
Sam sighs as he leans his temple against the wall. “Yeah. Bobby’s here… helping…”  
  
_“When did Bobby get there?”_  
  
“A few hours ago.”  
  
_“Do you want me to come over too? Sounds like you could use all the help. I’ll call Jo and she’ll join us.”_  
  
“No, thanks, Ellen, it’s—”  
  
_“Come on, Sam, just tell us if we can help.”_  
  
Sam licks at his lip. “I think—I think this is just a temporary situation. It’s some sort of screwed-up hunt, and I—I’ll let you know if Dean—if we don’t—” His throat constricts as a horrible feeling crawls over his very skin. God, he hopes Dean’s not gone that long.  
  
Ellen’s rush of breath from the other side sounds like the wind of a dust storm.  _“Okay, sweetie. I’ll wait for news. Just let me know when you find him.”_  
  
“I will, Ellen.”  
  
_“And if you need help, you’ll call me?”_  
  
“I will, thanks,” says Sam.  
  
_“Take care, will you?”_  
  
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be fine.” There’s silence, and they both know it’s a lie.  
  
_“Well, I’ll catch you again later,”_  Ellen tells him. Sam hangs up and stares at the phone for a moment, and then at the pizza that Bobby had ordered for him. Bobby had asked Sam to eat before he left, and honestly, Sam’s gut only churns at the mere thought of the food but he knows he needs his energy.   
  
He sits down at the table to eat and opens the huge, flat box, fishing out a piece and taking a bite. The cheese feels stringy and greasy, the sauce too sweet, and the barbecued chicken tastes like rubber, but Sam swallows it down before taking a drink from a can of beer.  
  
He repeats the cycle—a bite, a swig, and another bite after, and the pizza slides down his gullet with great difficulty, like gunky bits of stone. The sauce is so syrupy he almost gags, but he keeps at it. He doesn’t want to worry Bobby. And, yes, he does need his strength.  
  
Sam forces himself to pick up another wedge, watching the cheese stretch into thin ropes as he tries to separate the pieces. He takes another hesitant bite and reaches for the beer, but accidentally knocks it forward and sends it tipping down on the table.  
  
“Crap,” Sam hisses, pushing back his chair as the beer gushes out from the mouth of the can and spreads over the table, wetting the bottom of the pizza box. He stands up to get a towel from the bathroom, glaring at the beer puddle on the table, when he sees it.  
  
_Sammy._  
  
Yellowing, sunken, dead eyes stare back at him from the puddle of spilled beer. A reflection. Flinching, Sam turns around to find nobody behind him, just as a dark shadow moves in the periphery of his vision.  
  
“Dean?” Sam stumbles over to the spot where he saw the shadow, unarmed against his better judgement, and he hears the voice again.   
  
_Sammy?_  
  
This time, it's different. Earlier, it had been unconcerned—the voice, the tone, and now…  
  
It sounds like Dean is desperate.  _Scared._  
  
“Dean, where are you?” Sam whispers, just as a dank, decomposing smell begins to fill the room. The air is suddenly too thick, too musty, and Sam can’t breathe.   
  
He gags at the rank odour. “D-Dean?”  
  
_Sammy, help._  
  
And Sam sees them again, piercing through the darkness, just a pair of eyes, still dead, still yellowing, and…  
  
_Dean._  
  
Before Sam can scramble to his brother, it's gone. It is all gone, along with the voice and the smell, and the eyes. Dean is gone.  
  
Sam is barely able to keep himself standing for five minutes before he has to rush to the sink to throw up.  
  
0  
  
Sam is sitting on the bed, rubbing at his clammy forehead, when he hears the doorknob to his room turn. Heart racing, he looks at the doorway because it could be Dean, but a tiny part of him knows that it’s not, and he’s disappointed when Bobby enters the room, a few books in hand, presumably from the local library. He doesn’t look too happy.  
  
“Filed a missing persons’ report,” Bobby mutters, seating himself on the bed opposite Sam’s, eyes tired and shadowed. “And… get this, Dean’s not even on their criminal records.”  
  
Sam’s attention snaps to Bobby’s words. “What do you mean?”  
  
Bobby sighs. “There’s—well, there’s you, and you’re supposed to be dead—like we know, but there’s no Dean.”  
  
“At all?”  
  
“Nope.”  
  
“But…” Sam swallows. “Who was my partner in crime?””  
  
“You apparently operated alone.”  
  
Sam swallows down that piece of information, the room doing a dizzy spin around him as more nausea attacks. Bobby seems to notice. “You okay?”  
  
Sam bites at his lip. “Dean was here.”  
  
“ _What_? And you didn’t—?”  
  
“Dean was here,” Sam interrupts him, “but not in… not as Dean.”  
  
“What do you mean?”   
  
“He... he…” Sam swallows again, as he remembers the eyes. The dead eyes.   
  
The voice. Dean’s voice. The humid, decomposing smell of  _death_.  
  
_Sammy, help._  
  
“He c-called out,” Sam chokes, breath catching in his throat. “I... I…”  
  
“What’s wrong?”  
  
Nausea roils in Sam’s gut again. “I—I s-ssaw…” Bile rises up his throat.  
  
_Sammy, help._  
  
“What did you see, son?”  
  
_Sammy._  
  
Sam abruptly gets up from his place, brushing Bobby’s hand from his knee and stumbles to the bathroom before dropping in front of the toilet.   
  
_Sammy, help._  
  
He retches painfully, coughing, as bitter bile and acid erupt from his stomach. He grinds his forehead against his forearm and spits up more bile.  
  
“Sam?”  
  
_Sammy?_  
  
Sam dry-heaves, and feels his muscles spasm agonisingly. He coughs harshly and retches again, bringing up even more bile.  
  
“Sam, you gotta breathe, boy.” Bobby is crouching behind him, and Sam just wants Bobby to leave him the fuck alone. He retches again, unproductively, and it feels like his throat and his windpipe are tearing apart at the effort.  
  
Bobby falls quiet behind him, just staying there and not touching, unsure what to do, and Sam heaves again, wishing, wishing Dean was here. But Dean is not here. His fingers curl against the cool porcelain of the toilet bowl. Dean is… Dean is…  
  
Sam hides his eyes, feeling the tears well up as his breath hitches once, and then again. He coughs, letting a sob rip through him, and Bobby’s hand is briefly at his shoulder, and then gone. He takes a breath. “B-Bobby?” His voice won’t even come out right, and he chokes on another sob, lifting his head slightly as the tears drip mercilessly from his eyes, down his nose, and into the bowl.  
  
“I’m here, boy,” Bobby says, with a rare gentleness to his voice.  
  
Sam spits, coughs, and sobs again. Bobby sighs heavily behind him. “What is it?”  
  
“I th-think…”  
  
_Sammy?_  
  
“I—I th…th-think—” Sam swallows, and Bobby waits patiently, as Sam sniffs  and raises his head higher, but still doesn’t look at Bobby.  
  
“Yeah,” Bobby coaxes him.  
  
“I th-think Dean’s d-dead.”  
  
0  
  
“He asked you for help?”  
  
Sam nods, head in his hands, as he sits against the tub, with Bobby standing awkwardly at the bathroom doorway. The light feels harsh, glinting off the tiles and the porcelain of the sink and the toilet, and Sam stares at a spot on his jeans to avoid the assault. “Yeah.”  
  
“And you saw him?”  
  
“Yeah, Bobby,” Sam replies wearily.  
  
“Sam,” Bobby says, “I’m not asking whether you saw an image of his eyes. Did you see  _Dean_? The whole of Dean, like he really is?”  
  
“H-He—”  
  
“He wasn’t corporeal, was he?”  
  
Sam shakes his head, rubbing the heels of his palms against the damp corners of his eyelids. “No.”  
  
“So it might not be Dean.”  
  
Sam feels his chin quiver. “I know what I saw. I know what I heard.”  
  
“Sam—”  
  
“Do you think he’s dead?” Sam raises desperate eyes to Bobby, feeling like he’s four again, asking Bobby for reassurance about whether his father will return from his long ‘business’ trip, and ten, wanting Bobby to tell him that his dad and brother weren’t dead, and that a complication in the hunt was just delaying them. He doesn’t want to be an adult anymore. He wants his big brother to be here—and for Bobby to be a buffer again, because this is more pain than he can take. This is worse than what he can imagine enduring.   
  
He won’t complain about doing  _everything_  to get Dean back. He can take anything. Anything but this.  
  
Bobby comes in, puts down the toilet lid and sits on it. “Sam, why do you think Dean’s dead?”  
  
“Because—” Sam doesn’t know what to say about that inexplicable feeling in his gut, or about how his heart feels ready to explode out of his chest when he thinks of Dean. He doesn’t know if Bobby will understand, and he doesn’t want his instincts to be true.  
  
“He’s fine,” Bobby says softly. “Dean’s going to be fine.”  
  
“I d-don’t…” Sam’s lip quivers. “How do you know that for sure?”  
  
“How I know that?” Bobby asks, sliding down to the floor, face-to-face with Sam now. Bobby’s eyes still look tired, shadowed, the rims of his sclerae red, like he hasn’t slept in a long time. He looks as tired as Sam feels.   
  
They lock gazes, and Sam nods. “How can you say?”  
  
“Because,” Bobby looks sympathetic. “It’s you who is in trouble, Sam.”  
  
Before Sam can react, cold hard hands find his neck, pressing hard, and Sam gasps for breath as Bobby transforms before him, the red rims on his eyes darkening, growing as the shadows underneath them start to stain an inky black. His eyeballs fade to yellow and shrink; the skin begins to melt off his flesh in large, white-and-pink islands of gore. His cap falls off, scalp peeling away and wizened hair growing out in long, oily, wiry strands.  Sam struggles, struggles hard against the bony hands around his throat.  
  
He pushes against the monster, a buzzing filling his ears as he's knocked back into the tub. He falls down and the monster straddles him, until he raises his leg to kick at its chest.  
  
It lets out a feral scream and rocks back. Sam scrambles away, watching it pick itself up and follow him. In the next moment, Sam’s reaching for his pillow. He throws it at the creature, hitting it squarely in the face, before snatching the knife from the bedside table.  
  
Sam raises the knife, fingers tightening on the hilt. “Come on, you bastard,” he rasps.  
  
He doesn't recognise the creature standing before him. It resembles a zombie, with the rotting flesh and the shine of bones underneath, and the stink it’s carrying with it. Sam stares at the shrunken, yellow eyes; this time, they’re not Dean’s, they’re Bobby’s.  
  
He swallows down the lump in his throat as the monster stands where it is, its jaw widened in what Sam can only assume is a smile. It seems to be contemplating the situation.  
  
Sam tenses further, readying each muscle for attack as he clutches the knife more tightly. With a snarl, the monster charges at him. Sam dodges it, moving to the side, knife still in hand, and when it comes at him again, Sam’s hand grips its shoulder, feeling the slimy rot of flesh, before sinking his blade into the creature’s abdomen.  
  
There’s a beat of silence. The creature’s hands fall to its sides. Sam tenses himself, ready to attack again, but before he can do anything, the monster flickers once, twice, and is gone, leaving the knife to clatter to the floor in its wake.

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

  
The ravens come back that night. But this time, they visit Sam’s dreams. They’re twins—sized and feathered exactly the same, eyes almost accusatory as they focus on Sam.  
  
_Muninn_ , they whisper, like it’s supposed to be a secret.  _Muninn_.  
  
0  
  
Sam’s been a hunter for a good part of his life. Sure, there were the first ten years where he wasn’t one, and then the four years at Stanford too, but the rest of the time that he’s spent hunting has more than made up for it all. He has seen almost every kind of monster he can imagine, and he knows how to kill most of them. He is still taken by surprise sometimes, though. And this is one of those times.  
  
Bobby’s things are gone. His car, his clothes, even the food he’d brought back, everything is gone. Sam doesn’t know what to make of it. He stares around at the bare other half of his room, wonders what he’d eaten if it wasn’t pizza, and is suddenly thankful for having puked it up.    
  
He picks up his phone and calls Bobby, the  _real_  Bobby, because he has to know that Bobby is there. That Bobby isn’t gone too.  
  
The phone rings a couple of times before Bobby picks it up.  _“Sam?”_  
  
He lets out a sigh of relief. “Hey, Bobby.”  
  
_“How you doin’ boy?”_  
  
Sam freezes. Bobby’s tone and words indicate that he doesn’t know about Dean being missing. Sudden fear rising in his chest and he sputters, “B-Bobby? Can y-you tell me s-something?”  
  
He can almost see Bobby frown.  _“Yeah. What happened?”_  
  
“Did I... did I call you b-before?”  
  
_“When?”_  
  
“Yesterday? Earlier today?”  
  
There is a pause.  _“The last I spoke to you was three days ago, kid.”_  
  
Who had Bobby’s phone then? Who had received Sam’s call?  
  
“Bobby, I—”  
  
_“Is anything the matter?”_  
  
“I d-don’t kn-know…”  
  
_“Where are you right now?”_  
  
“San Antonio.”  
  
_“Texas?”_  
  
Sam licks his lip. He remembers saying this to Bobby before. It didn’t reach the real Bobby, obviously, and what if...what if…?  
  
_“I’m coming over.”_  
  
“N-No!”  
  
_“Sam, let me help, boy. You can tell me.”_  
  
Sam is on the verge of a breakdown, but he takes a few deep breaths and clears his throat. “I’m g-good, Bobby. I w-won’t…”  
  
_“I’m wrapping up a hunt over at Houston. I’ll be there—”_  
  
“No, no, Bobby…”  
  
_“A few hours, Sam,”_  Bobby continues, ignoring him.  _“I’ll be there—”_  
  
Sam’s breath catches in his throat. “T-The motel?”  
  
_“You just told me where you are.”_  
  
“Okay. Come over.”  
  
_“You take care.”_  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
It isn’t until a few minutes later that Sam remembers how Bobby somehow seemed to know what motel he was at.  
  
Four hours later, he is ready with a knife when he hears a knock at his door. Bobby greets him with a smile. Sam looks at his eyes, and they’re bloodshot and shadowed beneath the lids, purple mottling loose skin. So before Bobby can enter the room, Sam takes out his knife, ignoring the wide eyes as he plunges it into Bobby’s abdomen.  
  
For a split second— _a split second_ —Sam’s heart races, as his mind whispers out a possibility of this being the real Bobby. But then Bobby flickers and wavers, his translucent form blinking under the yellow light at the entrance to Sam’s room, and Bobby is gone, sending the knife to the floor. Sam gets a sense of déjà vu, because this? This has happened before, and not so long ago either.  
  
Sam seems to have the Trickster back on his ass.  
  
0  
  
The summoning ritual isn’t hard to find, because Sam knows he’s done it before—in another world, in another life. He had researched the details again after waking up on that Wednesday, and written down the information in his dad’s journal to get a jump on things whenever he crossed paths with the Trickster again.  
  
But he didn't expect it to be so soon.  
  
Of course, there’s the fact that the murders around this town are nothing like what Sam would have expected out of the Trickster. There is no payback for people who are being assholes, and who, according to the Trickster, need to be knocked down a peg. The only evidence Sam has the repeated fuckery around him, with Dean missing and Bobby turning out to be some kind of a monster time and again, and that doesn’t actually prove anything.  
  
The Trickster is just the closest option.  
  
Sam will take anything he gets, though. He will trap the Trickster and have a talk with him, and find out what’s going on here. If that gets him killed, then so be it. If Dean’s gone… Sam takes a deep breath and collects himself. If Dean’s gone, Sam needs to pull him back. Bring him back from Hell. Sam can’t give up right now.  
  
He can’t give up, period.  
  
0  
  
The two ravens become one, and Sam is in a forest. He knows he’s dreaming, and he watches the raven as it opens its jet-black wings and swoops down on him.  
  
For a moment, he panics, but it lands on his shoulder, surprisingly light, talons gripping onto flannel and making tiny holes on it.  
  
_Muninn_ , it says, with a caress.   
  
0  
  
Huginn and Muninn are the twin ravens that serve Odin. Huginn stands for thought, Muninn for memory, and every day, they travel around the world, only to go back to Odin at night, to inform him about the affairs all around.  
  
Sam doesn’t know why Odin’s servants are bothering him. He wonders if it has anything to do with Dean, and if so, how. He finds no answers despite any amount of research.  
  
Meanwhile, he is running out of money to stay in the motel any longer. He tries to hustle pool, but he was never that good anyway and he doesn’t get much. He still needs money for food, though, so he moves out of the motel, and finds a run-down cabin in the dark outskirts of the town. The place is one-roomed, dank, and made of rotted wood, pitting and dying with mold growing on it. The floors are dirty enough to be a threat for tetanus. The windows lack shutters and are small, square, and high, and there’s a dusty toilet and a small kitchen counter.   
  
It’s good enough for Sam.  
  
He tries to dust and clean the floor with some of the motel towels he’s nicked, and sets up his sleeping bag on the floor. He then works on collecting material for his ritual.  
  
There is no need for the gallon of civilian blood, like Bobby had said in the Tuesday nightmares, but the ingredients are hard to come by. He manages to get them, by stealing cars, calling other hunters for favours. (Sam gets the ingredients mailed, instead of meeting these people, lest they turn into monsters like Bobby did.)    
  
It takes ten days to collect all the ingredients.   
  
Three days to Hell.  
  
Sam doesn’t count the hours, minutes or seconds this time. He just gets to work.  
  
He chooses evening time for the ritual, a little before sunset, and spreads the black mat on the floor before tracing symbols on it. After lighting candles and setting up the chalice for the rest of the ingredients, he chants an incantation from a page in the journal, and throws a burning match into the chalice, watching the glowing embers float out in sparks of red, yellow and orange.  
  
A blue-purple flame comes up promisingly and dances like a tongue licking the air, but then it dies in the next moment. Sam grips on to his stake, looking around for the Trickster, but sees nothing.  
  
He waits there several hours, kneeling for so long that his legs are numb, but there’s no reply to his summoning.  
  
The sun goes down completely and it gets dark, save the silver bars of moonlight seeping in through the gaps in the wood of the shack. Nothing changes. There’s no Trickster, and there’s no Dean. There’s only Sam.  
  
He lies down where he is, curling up on the cool, dusty floor, tetanus be damned. He snuffs in air and breathes it out, watching dust particles float up and waltz about in the moonlight before settling back down. He realises two things: it’s not the Trickster, and Sam’s really, really screwed this time.   
  
0  
  
_Muninn,_  the raven says, glee in its voice.  
  
_Where is Huginn?_  
  
0  
  
_Sammy._  
  
Sam wakes up to the whisper of his brother’s voice. He doesn’t remember falling asleep, and his whole body clenches as he smells the rot in the air.  
  
“Dean,” he whispers. “Where are you? Tell me, man.”  
  
_Sam._  
  
Sam turns to the source of the voice, to see the sunken eyes peering at him from the shadows. Dean’s dead green eyes. The yellow sclerae seem more bloodshot this time, and the eyes stare at Sam accusatorily, desperately.  
  
_Sammy, help._  
  
A lump rises in Sam’s throat. “I’m trying. Tell me where you are.”  
  
_Please. Sammy, please._  
  
“Dean?” Sam’s lived with his brother his whole life, and there are few aspects of Dean that Sam hasn’t seen. Like Dean begging the way he is now.  
  
_Please._  
  
Dean’s voice is harsh, like feet dragging against gravel. It's also tired, and pitiful. It breaks Sam’s heart. “Where are you, Dean? Just tell me. I’ll help. I’ll help you.”  
  
_Sammy, hurry._  
  
And it’s— _he’s_  gone.  
  
0  
  
_Muninn. Muninn, Muninn._  
  
Sam turns to the bird on his shoulder. “Shoo! Go away!”  
  
It grips tighter onto the fabric of his shirt.  
  
_Where is Huginn?_  
  
0  
  
“Ell-Ellen.”  
  
Sam hears a breath from the other side.  _“Did you find him?”_  
  
It’s been two weeks since Dean has been gone. It’s Sam’s birthday, the second of May. And it’s the day that Dean is supposed to have gone to Hell. And, if Sam didn’t know for sure, he does now. Dean is in Hell. Dean checked out; gave in early.  
  
Sam takes a deep breath at Ellen’s question. “No.”  
  
_“Have you spoken to Bobby? He was asking about you.”_  
  
“I spoke to him, Ellen.”  
  
_“He says—”_  
  
“I spoke to him.”  
  
She sighs.  _“Sweetie, hey, why don’t you come over?”_  
  
“Come over?”  
  
_“A little birdie told me it’s your birthday.”_ She doesn’t say ‘Happy birthday’, and Sam knows why.  
  
“Yeah,” he replies. “Look—”  
  
_“You’ve been there a while, Sam. You need a break.”_  
  
He feels anger rise in him at the suggestion, a thousand white-hot knives stabbing at his chest. How can she even ask this of him? How can she expect him to take a break, when Dean’s not getting one right now?  
  
Ellen is silent for a while, as though she can hear his thoughts. Sam looks at the electric connection he’s rigged into the cabin, at his laptop and the internet stick which is so slow, Sam doesn’t know what to do with it. He sighs. Maybe Ellen is right. Maybe he ought to visit her and Jo.  
  
He clears his throat and drives the heel of his hand to his forehead. “It’s okay if I come over?”  
  
_“Yeah, of course, hon.”_  She sounds surprised, as though she didn’t actually expect him to take her up on her offer.  
  
“When will it be okay for you?”  
  
_“Whenever you want,_ ” Ellen says, sounding relieved now.  _“This place is always open for you.”_  
  
“I’ll give you a call.”  
  
_“Okay.”_  
  
“Thanks, Ellen.”  
  
_“Sam…”_  she says on a sigh.  _“Take care.”_  She said that the last time too. She seems to like to say that a lot. Everyone, including the fake Bobby, seemed overtly eager to ask Sam to take care of himself.  
  
He mumbles something and cuts off the call. Then he waits for Dean all day.

0

 _Sammy._  
  
“Dean…” Sam’s tired of asking his brother where he is and getting no reply. He still feels the tears threatening to overwhelm him, when he says, “Tell me what to do. Tell me what to do, Dean.” He looks at the shrivelled, haunted eyes, knowing it’s his brother, but unable to acknowledge it to his aching heart.  
  
_Sammy, help._  
  
0  
  
Sam’s resolve breaks a little before midnight, on his birthday.   
  
It starts at around dinnertime, like little pieces collecting to form something huge. He hasn’t left for Ellen’s yet. He can’t stand to celebrate; there’s nothing happy about this wretched day. So he holes up in a corner of his grimy cabin, and thinks about all his birthdays that weren’t completely awful.  
  
He hasn’t gone to the cops yet, and he thinks he should. The trouble is, he can’t risk himself getting locked up while Dean’s suffering somewhere, especially when he knows that the police are really impotent when it comes to something like this. This is a supernatural disappearance, and how will they even find a man who’s not supposed to exist?  
  
Oh, Sam knows all about how Dean doesn’t exist even in the eyes of the law. He did make it a point to confirm fake-Bobby’s news about Dean not existing in the police records, and whoever,  _whatever_  Bobby was, he was right about this one. So there’s really little Sam can do, involving the law.  
  
His stomach growls out a plea for food, rocks scraping against his mucous membrane and making his gut quiver with acid and hunger, and he manages to stand up from his corner. He places a hand on his snarling belly and pulls out his wallet to count cash, before leaving for a seedy diner that he’s been frequenting.  
  
The salad is full of wilted vegetables. The corn tastes rotten, the lettuce is too soft, the chicken is hard to cut, fibres of flesh taking refuge between Sam’s teeth, and beer isn’t cold, but Sam doesn’t care. He downs it all, gagging slightly at the tasteless, cheap cheese, and the sourness of the dressing, and his appetite is gone before he knows it. Throwing change on the table, he gets up to leave, and spots the pecan pie on display.   
  
Twenty minutes later, Sam is back in his corner, staring at the pecan pie.  _Won’t you come back today, Dean?_  
  
There is no answer. Sam picks at the still-stuck chicken fibres with his tongue and vows to brush as soon as he’s finished the pie.  
  
He lifts the flimsy plastic spoon and starts to eat, shutting his eyes against the countless memories, against Dean’s satisfied, shit-eating grin whenever he had pie, and against the fact that today is the day that his brother is supposed to have gone to Hell.  
  
Dean did visit him, though. And not two hours ago. How is he still here? Didn’t Dean go to Hell?  
  
Or is this all a lie?  
  
The pecan pie sits like lead in Sam’s belly. He discards the plastic container and curls up in his sleeping bag, getting ready for another horrible night. He wants answers. He wants to find Dean. He wants to be a little brother again, and fuck it, he doesn’t care if Dean’s going to tease him mercilessly— but Sam really, really wants his brother back.  
  
Sleep extends her tendril-like arms to Sam and he willingly gives in, letting the black take over, floating in the realm that drifts beyond wakefulness but just before unconsciousness—a kingdom amongst the stars, in the clouds, like those childhood times when happiness involved eating stolen candy, holding Dean’s hand and running together to the playground, or being carried by his dad while he slept on his shoulder…  
  
_Sammy._  
  
Sam’s eyes shoot open. The decaying smell doesn’t affect him anymore, and he looks into Dean’s eyes as he sits up. “Are you really Dean?”  
  
_Help._  
  
“Dean is in Hell,” Sam murmurs. “Who are you?”  
  
_Sammy, please._  
  
Sam’s breath hitches. “Who are you?”  
  
There is no reply. Just the eyes watching him, dead and staring, and suddenly, not Dean’s anymore, even though they look a lot like Dean’s.  
  
This is not Dean. Dean left. Dean left Sam alone, and is in Hell.  
  
“Get the fuck out of here,” Sam says, voice shaking. “Get out.”  
  
_Sammy._  
  
“You’re not Dean!” Sam’s breath hitches again, getting trapped somewhere inside, and he swallows down the lump in his throat. “Leave!”  
  
There is a pause. Then Sam hears something he’s never heard until now, at least from this… from this  _apparition_  that pretends to be Dean.  
  
_Okay, Sammy._  
  
Sam’s heartbeat picks up at the words, the air around him shifting slightly as he feels Dean leave. And he doesn’t think of it for a moment. This wasn’t Dean. This couldn’t have been Dean. Right now, Sam needs to get Dean out of Hell, and that’s his goal. He should have tried harder all these days, but now, he’ll try harder than the hardest he’s ever tried.   
  
Except, it seems like that was really Dean.  
  
No. Dean has to come back. He will come back. If he’s the stubborn jerk of a brother that Sam has known twenty-five years, Dean will come back.  
  
And Sam will figure out where Dean is, once and for all. He will pester Dean, talk to those daunting eyes of his, (Really, _really_ , does Dean think he can scare Sam just like that?) and he will coax the answer out of Dean, drag his brother’s ass from whatever trouble he’s gotten himself into.  
  
For a few moments, Sam almost believes that. He almost believes that Dean isn’t actually in Hell. And he still waits for Dean, like Dean had waited all that time for him—the nine months that their mother had carried Sam, outside Sam’s kindergarten classroom, in the Impala, to pick up Sam from school when Dean’d finished, when Sam was at Flagstaff, when Sam went to Stanford, and when Sam went into that diner to get that pie the night before he’d died… for Sam to wake up, for Sam to come back to him… all that time… all that time…  
  
Sam waits there in the calmness of the moonlight, in his run-down cabin, for a long time, waits for Dean to come back and say something else. He will rib Dean about this:  _I did wait for you, jerk, but you were the one ripping off a B-grade horror flick._  Sam thinks of all the cheeseburgers and pies that he’ll buy Dean, all the Metallica cassettes he’ll willingly listen to on a loop, and all the extra onions he’ll put up with.  
  
_Just don’t be gone to Hell._  
  
The moon is bright and beautiful and a pale yellow, visible from the high window and accompanied by a gazillion stars that blink down innocently at the earth. And just like the stars, that are so constant, never playing hookie despite the truancy of the moon, Dean’s been Sam’s constant, and Sam knows that. Dean wouldn’t have bailed. Sam’s waited and waited for two weeks and tonight is special, and Dean will return.  
  
Dean doesn’t oblige.   
  
The stars remain up there and the moon sheds its light in greying beams and slivers illuminating the rotting wood; but Dean doesn’t prove himself tonight. Sam shouldn’t blame his brother for this—shouldn’t blame Dean for all the fuckery that’s happening; but fuck, he does,  _he does_ , because Dean should have never walked out of that door that day. He should have never left.   
  
And, if he really wanted to leave that badly, he should have just told Sam as much.  
  
Sam feels his chest tighten, and succumbs to a restless slumber. He dreams of being trapped. He dreams of choking... rough, grainy grit pouring into his nose and mouth, blocking the air, and his head throbs as he tries to cough and spit out the acrid taste that sits on his tongue. And then he’s running, voices chasing him, a hundred hands gripping his shirt, trying to pull him back—and he stops, until there’s only light; light everywhere and more voices, chasing him as he begins to run again, angry, sympathetic, encouraging voices, and…  
  
_SAMMY!_  
  
Sam sits up with a jolt, feeling mini rivulets of cold sweat streaking down his forehead and his temples as his gut cramps with nausea. The food, the beer and the pecan pie are rising up his throat in an acidic mess and he forces it down, holding on to it while he teeters on the edges of sanity, trying to make something out of what he just saw.   
  
Was that Dean? What is happening to him? Is he choking to death? Is he trapped? Is someone trying to change him into… _something_?  
  
Sam doesn’t think twice. He gets to his duffel and grabs his shovel before throwing on a shirt and walking out of the cabin, only to break into a run towards the cemetery.   
  
0  
  
The digging goes on for hours.  
  
He digs and digs and digs at the brown earth, and the wind blows in chilly songs, crooning in Sam’s ears and whipping his hair out of his face as he thrusts the shovel into soil. The sky begins to bleach into a dull grey, streaks of cotton-like clouds lining it as bigger, blacker clouds float above those, threatening to bump into each other and drop their loads down and make Sam’s job harder.  
  
He continues to dig quicker, unearthing soil, and nothing else—and no trace of whatever it was, that wanted Sam’s brother to suffer. That Dean was buried alive here, somewhere. And fuck, Sam hopes his dream was just a dream as he continues to dig.  
  
It starts raining sometime after seven. The thick droplets of water slide between the pores of the earth, dampening it and turning it into mush that’s heavy and clay-like. Sam keeps digging up more, and he’s going as quick as he can, because the cops can’t find him here. But he needs to look—look everywhere—and if Dean’s really buried here, fuck, what would the rain have done to Dean’s chances of still being alive…?  
  
He digs some more.  
  
No one turns up, and Sam’s shovelling at a spot, when he stops suddenly and veers about, looking at all the upturned soil around him from the night. Dean was nowhere to be found, and what says that he’s even here?  
  
Sam can’t give up, so he keeps going. He keeps going until he hears the roar of a car’s engine, and then he just runs out, muddy, wet and dirty, making his way back to his cabin, the shovel weighing a ton in his arms as he thinks of all the places that Dean isn’t at.   
  
Because, if Dean had been at the cemetery all this time, he wouldn’t be alive, and like the other victims, he would have been in a shallow grave, where the smell would reach the people visiting, and…  
  
Sam halts before his temporary shelter, opens the rickety door and throws aside the shovel before taking two steps in and slipping against the pock-marked, wooden wall. He pushes back his soaked hair, the wetness on his face renewing as he shuts his eyes against the tears that slip.  
  
That’s when he knows that Dean’s actually, really gone forever. In his dreams, Muninn is gone too.  
  
0  
  
The crossroads are lonely, the sweet smell of the yarrow bushes penetrating the air as Sam stands there, a rusty metal box in one hand. It’s raining again. It hasn't stopped raining since he’d dug up the cemetery.   
  
The thick droplets drench Sam, plastering his hair to his face and running down his unshaven cheeks. He looks at the little box once, opens it, and throws his picture in before kneeling on the muddy ground to begin scooping up soil.  
  
He doesn’t use a spade for it. His fingers scrape against wet soil and gravel as he drags it out, plonking it aside in a small pile while he goes deeper. His nails hit against hard earth and bleed, starting to burn and break as he scrapes harder.   
  
He looks at his hands once, and the blood is black in the darkness, dripping down like the very rain itself.  
  
He gets back to it, though, the skin on his hands shrivelling and his hair dripping trickles of water into his face, clinging to his neck. His jeans are heavy and wet, scraping against the gritty surface beneath him, and his shirt is stuck to his body like a second skin.  
  
He goes on.  
  
The satisfaction when he’s buried the summoning material is something he hasn’t felt in a long, long time. His nails and hands are screaming bloody murder and he is shivering and his nose tingles, threatening to make him sneeze, but he doesn’t care. Dean’s in so much pain, and—maybe, maybe this way, Sam can share some of it. Maybe Sam can take some of it for Dean, so Dean doesn’t have to be suffering so much.  
  
He brushes dirty hands against soaked jeans and waits for the demon to appear. Nothing happens. And Sam just keeps waiting.  
  
He waits there for hours, under the unending rain. He waits through breakfast and lunch and dinner. He waits for the demon and he waits for Dean. He waits for the rain to drown him. He waits for death to claim him.  
  
0  
  
Sam calls Ellen the next day.  
  
He is sneezing, a little congested, and he runs his hand under his nose occasionally as he drives a stolen, blue Prius to Ellen’s place a few hours later. She now has the Roadhouse up again, a smaller setup this time. It’s not a short drive there but Sam doesn’t stop, doesn’t rest through the journey.  
  
Ellen is waiting for him at the door when he arrives, her eyes sympathetic, and she looks fatigued.   
  
Sam is overwhelmed by how much she cares, but he would exchange that for Dean being back, and he wouldn’t give a damn. He’s just drained. Exhausted. He feels like he hasn’t slept in a hundred years, and like Dean’s been gone a thousand more.  
  
Sam wants Dean home again. He’s tired of just  _wishing_  for his brother back, because he wants it to happen— _really_ happen. But it won’t, and Sam’s so drained, so fatigued…  
  
A cold, sweaty beer is placed in Sam’s hands the moment he crosses the threshold, and he’s being wrapped up in a hug.  
  
“Sam, sweetie,” Ellen whispers, pulling away as she gestures him to the bar. He sits on a stool, putting his lips to the cool rim of the bottle and taking a few gulps as Ellen starts to wipe a couple of glasses with a floral washcloth. She turns around, taking a stool opposite him, and Sam gets one look at her face only to notice her bloodshot eyes, with the dark shadows underneath them.  
  
Before Ellen can say anything else, he’s pushed his beer away and is out of the door and back in his Prius. He drives, breaking all speed limits, before pulling over onto a shoulder and staggering out of the car to squat against the fender and cram two fingers down his throat.  
  
His whole body shudders at the stimulus and he tries once, twice, dry-heaving at first, and then retching up the beer that Ellen just gave him. He doesn’t know if it’s poison, and he doesn’t want to die. He needs to help Dean. He needs to stay alive.  
  
He clutches at his hair with his good hand, putting his elbow on his knee as he throws up, his vision greying with exhaustion and sweat pouring off every inch of him. His stomach burns and snarls, and Sam coughs miserably as he finishes, before wiping his mouth on the back of his hand and stumbling back into the car.  
  
He rests his head against the steering wheel, his body shaking from the lack of food, and he fights off the cold dizziness for a while before he’s feeling better, and can drive again.  
  
That evening, when he’s hustled pool, fed his starving stomach, and checked into a run-down motel, his phone begins to ring, flashing Bobby’s name on it. Sam stares once at the blue glow of the screen and throws it against the wall. The phone shatters, and starts to ring again.  
  
Sam just goes back to his bed and curls up there, hoping that this is all a nightmare. The next morning he leaves the motel with the broken phone still on the floor, still ringing, and he gets into the car and starts driving.  
  
He keeps driving from there—away from the phone, away from Bobby and Ellen, away from everything else that isn’t Dean. He keeps driving from there, knowing that he is really, truly  _alone_.


	4. Chapter 4

 

  


  
**_April the eighteenth, 2008_ **  
  
**_San Antonio, Texas_ **  
  
Samantha Kingston is having a bad evening. Day care had been a noisy affair with the kids especially out of control, screeching and screaming more than usual, and that did nothing to relieve the headache that had been gnawing at her since the morning.   
  
Usually, a cup of coffee, and story night with Brenda and their three-year-old, Jason, was all Samantha needed to feel much, much better. However just a few minutes ago, she’d received a frantic call from her girlfriend, and that call just made her feel worse yet.  
  
_“Sam,”_  Brenda had said desperately, _“something’s happened!”_  
  
“What?” Samantha had asked, heart racing. Brenda was the coolest person she knew, and if her girlfriend was freaking out…  
  
_“There’s this guy. I f-found… Sam, he was buried alive …—luckily I saw the grave, and—”_  
  
“What?!”  
  
_“Remember those reports in the paper?”_  
  
The reports. Of dead bodies being found in shallow graves.  
  
“You went to Holy Cross?” Samantha had demanded, heart soaring up into her throat. Why would Brenda have gone there, when she had known it was dangerous? Okay, well, Samantha actually knew the answer to that, but why now? Now, with all those fucking murders going on?  
  
_“I went to the cemetery,”_ Brenda had replied, sheepish.  _“I—”_  
  
“People have  _died_  there, Brenda!” And it’s actually weird saying that, because the cemetery has dead people in it anyway. But people had been killed. People, who were supposed to be alive, had died.  
  
_“I was at the mall with Jason,”_  Brenda had said.  _“And I just wanted to stop by for a bit and,”_ she scoffed with laughter _, “You know nothing could get me. Anyway, I’m at Northeast Methodist Hospital, and since I was the one who found this guy, I need to stay. Come take Jason home?”_  
  
Samantha had sighed. “Are you okay?”  
  
_“Yeah, Sam, I’m good. I called 9-1-1 as soon as I realised what was going on, and they managed to get him out alive.”_  
  
“Good, good, I’m coming to get Jason. You want me to bring you something? A cup of coffee?”  
  
_“That would be great, Sam, thanks.”_  
  
And Samantha had left day care immediately.  
  
Now, she's watching the sun go down, throwing red, yellow and purple everywhere, and she thrusts her hands in her pockets as she hurries to the diner to pick up Brenda’s coffee. She's incredibly relieved that Brenda and Jason are all right—and really, Brenda should have just stayed away from the cemetery, at least until this case was cleared, but Samantha won’t bother getting angry at her now. She’s immensely relieved, and she’s going to make it up to Brenda tonight for even the little bit of yelling she’s done over the phone.  
  
The coffee takes a couple of minutes to grab, and Samantha picks up a glazed doughnut for Jason before getting into her station wagon, a white 1991 Camry, and pulls off to the hospital. The car purrs under her hands as she steers it onto cool blacktop, a prayer on her lips for her family. A prayer of gratitude. And Samantha isn’t even the praying type.  
  
The hospital is all hustle and bustle, and Brenda is sitting in the green and white waiting room, leaning against an uncomfortable plastic chair while she’s saying something to Jason. “Brenda?”  
  
Her girlfriend looks up and her face softens with relief. She lifts Jason, hoists him in her arms, and rushes over to Samantha, who gives her a one-armed squeeze before burying a kiss in Jason’s blonde mop of hair. She waits until Brenda sits down again before handing over the coffee, pulling Jason into a hug. He looks at her with baby blue eyes. “Mommyyyy!”  
  
“Yes, baby,” Samantha sighs, kissing his hair again. “I’ve got something for you in the car that you can have after your dinner, yeah?”  
  
“Okayyy,” he says happily, and buries his face into her chest, undoubtedly tired from all the excitement that he probably can’t understand.  
  
Samantha turns her attention to Brenda, who sips on the coffee as though it’s elixir. She smiles sadly. “Feeling better?”  
  
Brenda nods. “Yeah, yeah. Sorry I freaked you out.”  
  
“What happened? How did you know about that guy?”   
  
“I wanted to visit the cemetery, you know, show Jay…” she pauses, “you know, Sam… I…” Brenda trails away, and Sam lays a hand on her shoulder.  
  
“I know,” she says softly. “You scared the crap out of me, but I know.”  
  
Brenda smiles slightly. “So, at the cemetery, there was a light.”   
  
“A light.”   
  
“I was turning the corner when we saw it, and Jay got excited.” Brenda sighs. “And he ran, so I had to keep up with him—and thank God that I did…”  
  
“You didn’t see anyone leave?”  
  
“No. The person must have been a damned genius to disappear like that, but no. I only got this guy, and I saw a mound of fresh earth, and after everything the newspapers have been screaming…”  
  
“You figured it out.”  
  
“No, but I called for help anyway.”  
  
“Good thinking,” Samantha says. She smiles. “I am in love with a hero.”  
  
Brenda shakes her head and runs a tongue her lips. “Hardly. I barely kept myself together for Jay. That was scary shit.”  
  
“And how’s the guy?” Samantha feels her concern rise. There is a huge, rubbery blob of guilt bouncing in her stomach, about being thankful that it’s someone other than Brenda and Jason to get attacked by… whoever’s doing something so heinous.  
  
“His name’s Jim McMinn,” Brenda informs her. She pushes her finger over an eyebrow. “He’s not so good, Sam. He was already oxygen deprived when they got him out. The last I heard, they’re trying to contact his family. Until then, I gotta deal with the police.” She glances at Jason, who is now sleeping soundly, tucked against Samantha. “I think you should take Jay home.”  
  
Samantha looks into Brenda’s brown eyes and leans in, planting a kiss on her lips. “You sure?”  
  
“This is no place for him.” Brenda tugs at a strand of Samantha’s hair, tucking it behind her ear. “He could catch something. Plus, I’ll probably be a while.”  
  
“It’s a big night, huh,” Samantha ponders out loud, staring at the white walls before her. She wonders if the man that Brenda just saved has a family, and how they will react when they’re informed.   
  
“Huge,” Brenda replies.   
  
And just like that, Samantha knows that tonight isn’t ending right here.  
  
0  
  
The man—Jim McMinn, as the hospital calls him—makes a miraculous recovery the next day. Brenda returns home late, and Samantha wakes up enough just to kiss her and then doze off again. In the morning, they both wordlessly go back to the hospital to check back on Jim.  
  
He’s about fifteen years younger than Samantha is, built pretty big, with a lawn of short, spiky, dirty blonde hair. A smattering of freckles covers his nose and the apples of his cheeks, but he looks pale and fatigued, lips white as they circle around an endotracheal tube, and long eyelashes almost camouflaged by the darkness around his eyes.  
  
Samantha and Brenda spend a while sitting by his bed before Samantha drives back to day care, leaving Brenda at the hospital with Jim. Brenda is invested in him, and Samantha can understand why, so she offers to come back later with more coffee. She also bids a silent goodbye to Jim. As she leaves, though, something strikes her. It’s really funny how she’s only known of Jim’s existence a few hours, and yet finds him occupying a lot of her thoughts already.  
  
She takes Jason to work with her. He usually stays home with Brenda, who is a guitar teacher. Samantha quite likes the domestic life that she and Brenda have built around each other after that long, hard struggle of fighting with themselves, and their families, and each other. They have a good life, a great life, and they’re finally enjoying the happiness they’ve craved.  
  
Samantha enjoys being around children, and though day care can get frustrating on the bad days, she still loves going there. She won’t complain. As a part of her rules, she only takes in the smaller kids, children no older than two, and this age-group is far better than the rest.   
  
Brenda, on the other hand, teaches guitar to regular batches of students, children and adults alike. They have a shed for it, and on the days that aren’t going so well for Samantha, she loves watching or listening to Brenda play, and she especially loves sitting inside the house in the evening, listening with her eyes shut, to Brenda playing her ukulele in the balcony. She’ll never tell Brenda of her preference of the ukulele over the guitar, though, because Brenda is pretty possessive of her guitar.    
  
“Mommy?”  
  
Samantha snaps out of her thoughts as Jason runs over to her, holding some colourful dough in his hand. He extends it to her and she smiles. “What is that, honey?”  
  
“Egg!” he replies excitedly.   
  
And that’s when Samantha’s phone rings. She sees Brenda’s name on the screen and gets it, pressing it to her ear, only to hear a breathless whisper.  
  
_“He woke up.”_  
  
0  
  
He rouses cell-by-cell, fibre-by-fibre, each crevice waking up, brain short-circuiting in bursts and charges, and the pall of fatigue is so deep, so blinding, that he feels like he’s slept a thousand years. Conscious thought begins to pour in, grains of sand streaming into an hourglass. It’s like a blanket of numbness is being lifted off him, and his skin tingles, pins and needles everywhere, until the aches hit, fire licking at his joints and bones and muscles and engulfing his very being. And that’s when he feels the thing that’s twisting down his throat.  
  
He wants to yell. He wants to scream. Instead, he gags, a plastic tube tightening inside his throat as hands gently press against his chest.  
  
There are voices.   
  
He tries to scream again, but he can’t, and there are more voices. Voices soothing him. Telling him to calm down. Voices saying that he will be just fine.  
  
He tries to believe them, and coaxes his mind back to the blackness; away from the pain, and away from the unbearable grief that sears at his chest, that has nothing to do with anything else.  
  
0  
  
There are two women. Sometimes, there’s just one, but most of the time, there’s two. He doesn’t know who they are. He actually doesn’t know who anyone is.  
  
He doesn’t even know who  _he_  is.  
  
They call him Jim. They say something about his credit card, and the insurance card that he matches, and he sees them both. His name’s Jim McMinn, all right, although he really doesn’t feel like a ‘Jim’. There’s also police, who keep asking him… asking him things. He doesn’t know answers to any of their questions. He can’t… he can’t remember anything about himself.  
  
The doctor says it’s probably because of ‘cerebral hypoxia’, the oxygen deprivation to Jim’s brain. He’s surprised that Jim woke up so quick, though. He calls it a miracle that Jim survives with just memory loss.  
  
Oh, joy, it’s almost awesome to not know who you are, apparently.  
  
The questions get more complex when the cops get info from CSI about a torn-up, sodden ball of paper that they’d found in Jim’s pocket, which turns out to be motel stationery. They inform him of this, and decide to give the place a visit. When they’re back, they ask Jim about a brother—his brother, named Harry, apparently—who had checked into the motel with Jim, and who Jim doesn’t remember any more than himself.  
  
_“Mr. McMinn, at what time did you go to the cemetery?”_  
  
_“Was your brother with you?”_  
  
_“The grave you were thrown into was big enough for two people, and we think they buried your brother there with you, though he seems to have escaped.”_  
  
_“We went to your room to check on your brother, but he isn’t in. He hasn’t been spotted around the area in a couple of days.”_  
  
_“We’re trying to gain information on your brother, Mr. McMinn.”_  
  
_“Can’t you remember anything at all?”_  
  
The answers, obviously, are filled with negatives. The doctors inform Jim that he’s suffering with a kind of amnesia they’ve never seen, because it’s never so perfect—you never forget just a single aspect of something entirely, and remember all the rest. Like how Jim’s forgotten all about his life right now.  
  
“We need permission to search your room. You also own a car, and we need to have a look inside it,” a particularly brawny cop tells him. He tries to sound sympathetic.  
  
Jim feels an eyebrow go up. “No.”  
  
“Mr. McMinn—”  
  
“Hey, pal, I’m the  _victim_  here,” Jim says. He doesn’t like cops. Something inside him tells him that he loathes these people. He shakes his head again. “There’s nothing I have worth snooping at.”  
  
“You say don’t remember anything.”  
  
“Yeah, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want you pokin’ at my things before even  _I_  can get a look,” Jim replies. His voice is hoarse and his throat aches and he wants the cop to leave him the fuck alone.   
  
Mr. Brawny takes a sharp breath and squares his shoulders. “We’ll be back.”  
  
The cops go away, Mr. Brawny in tow, and the ladies come back. It’s not even a day since he’s opened his eyes, and Jim knows he doesn’t like the authorities. He also knows what they’re going to be up to, once they’re back. They’ll produce a warrant and ransack his room.   
  
Jim lets out a frustrated sigh. He doesn’t like being laid up like this. He wants answers. And somehow, from an instinct he doesn’t even recognise, he knows that the cops will never have his answers, and that their snooping about in his life will only do him more harm than good.  
  
So he does the first thing he can think of. He decides to run.  
  
Ripping off the IV is not hard, but it’s painful and blood begins to drip out the busted vein in scarlet dribbles. Jim curses and presses the back of his bleeding palm against the white gown, and watches the deep red stain grow in awe. The bleeding stops in a few seconds. And then comes the difficult part: Jim has a fucking tube up his dick.  
  
That’s not very pleasant. It’s not pleasant at all. Jim grabs the yellow catheter and tugs at it, but it doesn’t move. He tries several times—but it won’t budge, and worse, it hurts. So he gives up, picks up the collection bag, and grabs his clothes from the side table.  
  
His phone lies beside his shirt, and he flicks it open to see that it’s conked off. He seems to be fond of layers, for there’s a t-shirt along with the dark green shirt and a leather jacket, paired with jeans. He patiently pulls them all on, tucks the barely-full collection bag into his boot, letting the leg of his jeans hold the rest of it, and resolves not to pee until he can get it removed. He enters the bathroom and peeks out the window. It's high, but he can see a pipe leading down two floors. To freedom.

0

  
Brenda is returning to her car when she hears the sound. The parking lot around the hospital is lined with bushes, and she swears she hears them rustle behind her back, and the very thought makes goosebumps rise on her neck. She pulls her scarf loose, gripping her keys in the gap between her fingers, ready to attack as she turns around…  
  
…only to see Jim McMinn emerge from the bushes.  
  
He’s wobbling out, dusting leaves off his clothes, but he notices her and stops. She stares at him for two moments, before she approaches him. “Where are you off to?”  
  
He raises an eyebrow. “What, you’re not going to ask me why I got out?”  
  
Brenda shrugs. “Hey, not your mom. Although, you should be in there right now, until they can figure out what’s wrong with you.”  
  
“I think they already did that,” he says. “I’ve conveniently forgotten all about myself, and my life. A specialised amnesia that only unlucky bastards like me could get.”  
  
“You said you don’t remember anything about yourself,” Brenda points out. “So how do you know you’re unlucky?”  
  
“Being buried alive seem lucky to you?” he asks, flashing her a cocky half-smirk.   
  
Brenda takes him in, his pale face and his freckles and his hair, and the fifteen layers he’s wearing. The moonlight makes him black, blue and grey, streaking the pale white of his skin, making him look like a phantom prowling the night; like one of those old-school cartoon villains that Brenda had watched growing up.   
  
This man, Jim McMinn, shouldn’t have woken up, but he did. He shouldn’t have been able to breathe, but he is. Fuck, how’s he even walking?  
  
“I don’t know who I was before now,” Jim says suddenly, “but I don’t believe in coincidences.”  
  
“You think the memories are gone on purpose?”  
  
He shrugs. “Either that, or, like I said, I’m just  _that_  unlucky.”  
  
Brenda looks at him another moment. A chilled breeze blows over, rumpling her hair and sticking it against her lip gloss, while Jim pulls his jacket tighter and licks at his full lips before flashing her a duck-face. “You’re going to tell the hospital authorities, aren’t you? About me?”  
  
She needs to tell the hospital authorities about him. He needs help, and despite herself, despite everything she’s thinking about, Brenda finds herself shaking her head. “Not if you come home with me.” She holds out her hand. “Brenda Shanks.”  
  
0  
  
The car ride is silent, and Jim finds himself glancing over at Brenda regularly, wondering what made her agree to going back to his motel with him. He knows she has a girlfriend—he’d caught them kissing in one of his moments of vague consciousness—but this is the first time he’s seeing her up-close, just like it’s the first time today that everything seems at least a little clear.  
  
She’s got short-ish, blonde hair, straight and falling around a long face that’s marked with age. Her lips are thin and slightly lined on the edges, painted a deep, glossy red, complementing the light blue of her eyes. She’s pretty tall, almost as tall as Jim himself, and there seems to be an aura of independence around her. Jim would put her age in the early forties.  
  
“So,” Brenda says, disrupting his thoughts, “why exactly are you running away?”  
  
Jim looks up, at the glowing yellow lanes on the black road. “I wanna know who I am.”  
  
“The cops are trying to figure that out, you know.”  
  
“Yeah, but I don’t like them and I don’t want them going through my stuff,” he says. “I think I might not have liked cops very much, even…  _before_.”  
  
Brenda steals a look at him, something akin to amusement twitching at her lip. An eyebrow goes up gracefully. “Sam would be thrilled.”  
  
And just like that, there’s a huge hole in Jim’s gut. He feels like his internal organs are churning together and spinning inside of him, an ache rising in his heart as his breath catches in his throat. Insane fear seizes him, shooting through his bones, muscles, and nerve endings, and he has to swallow to get his voice back. “S-Sam?”  
  
The name sounds like it belongs there, on his tongue, and he doesn’t know why he feels this way.  
  
Brenda doesn’t seem to have noticed anything. “My girlfriend,” she says. “Samantha, actually.”  
  
He waits for the ‘Samantha’ to pull at his heart, but it doesn’t. He stares ahead again. “Sam,” he whispers. And he keeps whispering it all the way back, not understanding the lump in his throat, or the sick feeling he gets every time it hits his ear. Because, somehow, he just wants to keep saying the name. Again and again.  
  
_Sam._  
  
0  
  
‘Sam’ is as old as Brenda, albeit shorter and softer-looking, with a round face and curly red hair, streaked with grey near the temples and tied up in a bun. She’s in her pyjamas when Jim and Brenda enter the house. She and Brenda had argued briefly over the phone—that’s right, Jim remembers phones and the English language and all about urinary catheters, but not his name or his brother’s name. (Apparently it’s Harry, but the cops told him that.) He doesn’t know if he has a dad or a mom, a girlfriend of a boyfriend (Holy fuck, does he like girls or does he like boys?) and he doesn’t know if he has any other friends or family at all. Apart from Harry, that is.  
  
He knows why Sam argued with Brenda, though. He knows why it could be an issue:—he’s a hospital runaway, part of this big murder case that’s apparently been doing the rounds for a while here, and there’s the catheter up his cock.   
  
But as he looks at Sam now, watching her be sad and angry at Brenda, Jim thinks he might not be welcome in this house for long.  
  
Meanwhile, Sam gives him a sympathetic smile, as Brenda beckons him to sit at the dining table while she gets herself some coffee. Sam’s face is half-hidden in the darkness as she watches Jim. “You must be tired.”  
  
He shrugs. “I’m cool. You, um, know how to get a urinary catheter out?”  
  
She opens her mouth and shuts it, confused. “You still have your… catheter in?”  
  
“Yeah, I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to get rid of it, and I was in a hurry.” He pauses. “Look, I don’t wanna crowd your house any more than you want me to stay. I’ll be out of your hair as soon as I can.”  
  
She is about to reply to that as Brenda joins them at the table, holding a cup of coffee like it’s liquid gold. Her eyes are bright, alive with an excitement that Jim can’t quite figure out. “You want to find your family?” she asks him.  
  
Jim runs his tongue over his teeth. “I want to find my family. But, before that, I wanna find  _me_.”  
  
She nods. “Let’s do it.”  
  
He glances at Sam, and then at Brenda. “No, not you.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“You’ve got a life of your own.” Jim breathes out a sigh. “But me…”  
  
Brenda’s eyes soften. “Hey, you do have a brother, that’s for sure,”  
  
A lump forms in Jim’s throat, unbidden, and he thinks of the brother he doesn’t know anymore. “I don’t think he’s alive.”  
  
Brenda doesn’t bite. “He’s missing. Doesn’t mean he’s dead.”  
  
Jim doesn’t know what to say. He glances back at Sam, who is indifferent, and then at Brenda. “I d-don’t…”  
  
“I want to help you,” Brenda says quietly. “Please let me help you.”  
  
“You don’t even know me,” Jim points out. “Why would you want to do that?”  
  
She gives him a small, sad smile. “I don’t know. But I would feel great if I could help.”  
  
“Jeez, if you say ‘help’ one more time—” Jim stops and smirks at her. “I don’t… thanks, Ms—”  
  
“Just call me Brenda,” she says. “And we’ll start first thing tomorrow, once you’re well-rested. Yeah?”  
  
“Oh, no,” he says, “I gotta get back to the motel and take my stuff before those jokers get their hands on a warrant. I don’t want their stinkin’ fingerprint powder on my things.”  
  
Brenda glances over at Sam. “The warrant.”  
  
“Yeah,” Jim says. He stands up. “Actually, one of those fuckers shouldn’t take long—” he can’t even believe he has this information in him, but he does. His heart sinks. If he can recollect all this, why not anything else?  
  
“Jim,” Brenda says in a level voice, “we might have a way of contacting the DA.”  
  
Jim is just about to take off but he pauses, and looks over at the two women. “Come again?”  
  
“We could pull some favours,” Sam replies hesitantly. “The DA actually brings her kid over to the day care I run, so…”  
  
“Are you sure?” Jim’s voice is a whisper.  
  
“Pretty much,” Sam replies.  
  
“They’re gonna see that I ran away. And they’re gonna think I’m involved in this crap. I am not a victim anymore. You know that, right?”  
  
“I do.—I—” Sam sighs. “I’ll call her right now.”  
  
“We could take you back and sign you off AMA. Although,” Brenda says, frowning, “you really should have stayed.”  
  
Jim considers it. “Well, I do have insurance. And I feel fantastic, don’t worry.”   
  
Brenda stands up. “Come on, then. Back to the hospital. I’ll tell them you were wandering nearby and I found you. Or something.”  
  
“If they don’t think I’m a criminal already.”  
  
“You switched off the alarms on your heart monitor before you took off?”  
  
“Yep.”  
  
“Then we’ve got nothing to worry about. They probably didn’t know you were gone, at least for a while.”  
  
Jim can’t help but smile back at her. He turns to Sam, who is smiling as well.   
  
“I'm Sam,” she supplies, holding up her hand for him to take.  
  
“So I heard. Hey, Sam.” The name pushes a spike through his chest again, making him burst with phantom pain, and Jim holds his breath for a moment, trying to regain his bearings. He stares at Sam, and wonders if he can make a connection with her from before, but his memory shorts out on him and comes up with nothing. He feels so, so trapped in that moment that he wants to scream. But he doesn’t. He knows that he has to stay as calm as possible.  
  
He needs to get to the bottom of this. But—  
  
Jim grimaces at Brenda. “Can we get this catheter off first?”  
  
0  
  
“Sir, we need you to speak to your doctor regarding your decision. Signing out AMA can prove very risky to your health, and—”  
  
“I know,” Jim interrupts the receptionist, feeling his patience trickle away. “I just—I have shit to do, and please just give me a form.”  
  
“It’s hospital policy,” she insists, as she stays annoyingly polite. “I’ll make sure your doctor is with you soon.”   
  
“Fine,” Jim snaps, slightly guilty at having been so rude as he gets back to the waiting area and takes a seat. Beside him, Brenda is constantly checking her phone, while drumming her fingers against the armrest of her chair. Jim runs a hand through his hair, wondering what he’ll find out about himself. That’s when he spots the cops again, making their way inside.  
  
They stop at the reception, who points them towards Jim, and then they’re heading towards him. Jim sinks into his seat. Oh, great. They got their warrant.  
  
Brawny is the first to make it to Jim. “Mr. McMinn.”  
  
He looks up. “Yup.”  
  
Brawny sighs. “You can go back to your room. We didn’t get a warrant. You’re—” he pauses, “—well, you are a victim.”  
  
Jim shrugs, triumph bubbling over ever inch of him. “Told you, pal.”  
  
Brawny licks his lip. “You really... you don’t remember? Your motel receptionist says that you’d left the room of your own accord too. You were obviously kidnapped sometime after you left. Were you intending to visit the graveyard?”  
  
“I don’t remember,” Jim confirms. He wishes he did.  
  
“We didn’t find anyone called ‘McMinn’ in the cemetery,” the cop says. “But if you do remember…”   
  
Jim shrugs. “I don’t know. I wish I did. Not knowing who you are isn’t a walk in the park, you know.”  
  
“I guess,” Brawny says. Jim finds it amusing to see him all softened up, but he’s also really relieved about the warrant because now he can go and get his things in peace.  
  
The cops leave when the doctor arrives and explains to Jim the dangers of leaving the hospital, but he signs the AMA form anyway, and when he walks out of the hospital with Brenda, he isn’t sure he’s felt so free in a long time, even if he might not remember a long time at all.  
  
It makes him happy.  
  
Later, he thanks Sam for talking to the DA. She denies it, but he thanks her anyway.  
  
0  
  
The guest room is warm and comfortable. Brenda promised to drive Jim to the motel the next day, saying she was tired, and Jim thinks he owes it to her to at least let her rest after everything she’s done for him.   
  
Jim wraps the clean, cottony bed sheets around himself as he thinks of Brenda and Sam and Harry and everything else. He needs to rebuild his life from scratch. He needs to look for his brother, who is most probably in deep trouble. And Jim doesn’t even know where to start.  
  
He wonders how close he was to his brother. He wonders how close both of them were to their parents. He thinks of all those moments of his life, lost and buried under the very soil he’d been tossed beneath, and he wishes it were as easy as shovelling it all away and looking inside.   
  
Somewhere between the thoughts and wondering, Jim falls asleep, giving in to the rocking arms of the dreams that capture him and take him into another realm.  
  
He’s walking, walking down a street, barefoot, in jeans and a loose shirt, the wind folding and rippling the fabric as it blows in chilled streams, caressing the skin underneath and raising goosebumps as it comes. He shivers and straightens his shirt, and when he looks to his right, he sees it.  
  
It’s an old children’s playground.  
  
He doesn’t know why it’s so familiar, but as he makes his way towards it, a childish laughter rings in his ears.  _Faster, Dean! Come on!_  He stops briefly, swallowing a couple of times, and wonders why he feels like he knows that voice; wonders why he feels like he’s been here before. And that’s when he notices that that playground isn’t empty. There’s another man in there.  
  
The guy is sitting with his back to Jim, and as he takes another step farther, his heart races in his chest as memories come flooding in, like sand through a sieve. And he realises he can recognise that brown mop of hair, that slumping, brooding posture anywhere. He knows who this is. He knows who  _he_  is.  
  
His name is Dean Winchester. And he desperately needs to find his brother.  
  
He opens his mouth to call out to Sam. Sam, who’s sitting right there—who will be the answer to everything, who needs to come back and tell Dean he’s okay.  
  
And Dean can’t hold himself back anymore.  
  
_Sammy!_  
  
Sam turns around to look at him.  _Dean?_  
  
_Sammy_. He’s there,—almost there, and—  
  
_SAM!_  
  
He hears footsteps, and hands are on his face, on his chest, and he feels something cold and slick stream down his forehead. When he opens his eyes, though, all he can see is a middle-aged woman, followed by another, and they’re both bewildered as the one sitting next to him whispers, “Hey, I’m here. I’m right here. What is it? What happened? What happened?”  
  
He licks his lips. He had a dream. He knows he had a dream… and the dream was… he was dreaming about…   
  
He grits his teeth as it slips away like water through the gaps of his fingers. That dream was important. He knows it was. And as he tries to hold on to his memories, his identity, it all slips away from his grip, just like that; and he can’t find it, and he doesn’t know what’s happening. His brain refuses to pick up the pieces, refuses to dredge up any information for him.  
  
He shakes his head at the strange woman, heart coming up to his throat.  
  
“Wh-what’s happening to m-me?”  
  
She opens her mouth, and shuts it. “I d-don’t… you need the hospital, Jim.”  
  
Jim? His name’s Jim?  
  
His chest feels like it’s being squeezed as he shakes his head. “I c-can’t remember anything. I can’t remember who I am.”


	5. Chapter 5

 

  
Samantha’s life was never easy. She’d been married to someone—a man, had Jason with him, and then fallen for Brenda two years ago—and nothing about the whole process had been simple. She reckons she always knew she was at least a little attracted to women, but other people’s opinions, society, and her own internalised homophobia (which she now hates herself for) prevented her from doing anything about it. However, it made one thing very clear. Identity was, and has always been important to her, especially after she had struggled with her own for a while.  
  
Samantha looks at this man—Jim McMinn, trying to put himself back together. She watches his face crumple as he realises he can’t remember anything about himself or his life—or what his nightmare was supposed to be. All Samantha knows is that he woke up calling her name like it was tearing through his heart, and there was no way she could sleep through that, no matter how opposed she was to Brenda bringing him back. This man really needs help. He has no memories. No identity.  _He doesn’t know who he is._  
  
Samantha can relate to that.  
  
And now, she thinks, maybe Brenda had a point.  
  
His eyes are pleading and he’s sweating buckets, wetness slipping between Samantha’s fingers as she cups his face.  He looks like a child, a lost child, whom Samantha wants to hold and comfort.   
  
She wants to help get him back home.   
  
0  
  
It’s easier to  _want_  to find Jim’s family than actually do it, and Brenda and Samantha discover this the very day after Brenda brings him home.   
  
Jim is severely brain damaged. Well, maybe the doctors might not put it that way, but at least according to Samantha—and Brenda agrees—he is. They had no idea it could work this way: that medical conditions could turn out like this, but what Jim’s experiencing is beyond strange.  Every time he goes to sleep, he wakes up without any memories.  
  
This includes everything Samantha and Brenda tell him about himself—everything they know: about how Brenda found him at Holy Cross and how he was in the hospital, and how he’s looking for his family, and they’re helping him. He nods, listens to them, and tries to put the pieces together, which just go back to being shattered once he shuts his eyes.  
  
On his first day with them, Jim naps thrice. Only one of those times does he wake up calling for Sam, but he forgets all three times.   
  
Samantha and Brenda resolve not to give up, though, and they go ahead and snoop about the motel that Jim was supposed to be staying at. His entire case is big in the papers, and they know that the black classic car in the motel parking lot is Jim’s. Then they’re back to give him the information, so he can do whatever he wants to with it. He doesn’t need to do anything illegal, because the cops have allowed him to take his stuff, but this is just in case he wants to avoid the media.  
  
Jim drinks it all in, and tells them that he’d like to get those keys to his own motel room from the manager and gather his things, his car, because he knows breaking in will only get him into more trouble. He is very eager to find out about his family and is willing to accept help. That’s when Samantha knows that she and Brenda are heading for quite the adventure with Jim.  
  
Jim offers to leave once he gets his things, so that he won’t make trouble for Brenda and Samantha, but they insist on him staying and agree to help. Jim reluctantly accepts.  
  
Samantha also agrees to help Jim on his small mission, without knowing how big a chunk of her life she’s actually signing away to be invested in this.  
  
Later on, she will realise that she never regretted any of it. Later on, she will understand the fierce capabilities of love, and respect herself, Brenda, and Jim much, much more.  
  
0  
  
Jim is nervous about the supposed rediscovery tour that he’s headed on,—the second night of his stay over at the two ladies’ place. He is very grateful to the women—because they have quite a life of their own, and he hadn’t wanted to interrupt it. Their son is adorable beyond imagination and he’s taken a shine to Jim, which means Jim finds himself with a curious munchkin most of the day, and he finds that he doesn’t mind it at all. It works very well to relax him and make him forget about his concerns, which are tremendous.   
  
The kindness that Jim is shown is beyond what he had expected, and he wonders if  _before_ , people were just as kind to him, or if the reason he feels this way is that he has had a hard life.  
  
Judging by the kind of motel he was staying in, it’s the latter. Brenda and Samantha bring him pictures, and he can see that it’s not a very good place, and the clothes he’d been wearing when he came back from the hospital were torn or worn-out.   
  
He wonders what the bronze amulet that he wears on his neck, strung on a leather strap, is all about. Is he a jewellery junkie of some sort?   
  
He has a tattoo, too. It’s on the left side of his chest, just below his clavicle. It’s a pentagram surrounded by a circle, surrounded by what looks like flames. It’s pretty cool, and Jim thinks he really likes tattoos.   
  
It all seems like he had another life,—the before and the after, and he wishes he didn’t forget everything every time he woke up and have to re-explore himself.   
  
“Hey.”  
  
Jim is shaken out of his thoughts as Brenda waves his phone at him, before throwing it in his direction. He grabs it and grins. “It’s fixed?”  
  
“Yup.” She says. She had given it to a tech student of hers. “Brad says there was a bit of mud in it. It’s fine.”  
  
“Thanks!” Jim flicks the phone open and goes directly to contacts, starting to scroll down to look for his brother. There is no ‘Harry’. There’s no ‘Mom’ or ‘Dad’ or ‘Cousin Anyone’ either.  
  
Had he memorised all the numbers of his family? Because Jim could see no other explanation to this. He definitely had a brother, as confirmed by the cops, and there was no ‘Mom’ or Dad’ and that could mean—his heart sinks—it  _could_  mean they’re dead. But Harry. Harry definitely exists.  
  
He’s still scrolling down, glancing half-heartedly at the strange names, when he freezes.  
  
Sam.  
  
“So… you ready?”  
  
Jim had forgotten that Brenda was still at his door. He shakes away the shudder at Sam’s name and looks at her. Brenda is obviously excited, standing there at the door, her eyes holding a sparkle that lifts up Jim’s spirits.  
  
He nods. “Yeah. You ready?”  
  
“I’m good.” She shrugs.  
  
He licks his lip, tonguing at some chapped skin on the corner as he watches Brenda’s long finger tap against the open door. “You know,” he says slowly, “you don’t—”  
  
“We’ve been through this,” she replies softly. “We want to help. And you need our help. I think that’s all that we require, don’t you?”  
  
He nods again. “But Sam—”  
  
“Sam’s cool with it,” she says, as a grin stretches her glossed mouth. “She wants to help you too. We know this is your life, Jim, but we will be here as long as you need us.”  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
Brenda glares. “Come on, now, we’re getting late. I don’t want more of this sentimental crap, okay? We’re tired of living normal, and you,” her eyes twinkle, “you’re our escape.”  
  
“Wow, when you put it like that…”  
  
She chuckles. “Are we leaving today or not?”  
  
Jim smiles back. “Yeah, of course. Come on.” He grabs his bag and follows her down the hall, wondering what it was about his accident that got him so lucky. He can’t help the feeling of trepidation that bubbles inside of him, because when they get his stuff out of there, he is going to rediscover his life. He is going to discover his family.  
  
He is going to find his way back home.  
  
0  
  
The car ride is quiet and slow. Slats of moonlight slide in through the window, momentarily colouring the dark seats silver before slipping down to the floorboards. The cars on the road are few and far between, their headlights bright and scorching to Jim’s eyes as they whiz by, engines purring into the soft night.  
  
The motel is not far away from Holy Cross graveyard. Yellow police tape hangs around the doorway to what Jim can guess was his and Harry’s room. Some of it is ripped off as the search has been cancelled, although the whole scene still looks daunting and strange. They park a bit away, catch the boy at the reception smoking a joint, and make their way to the reception to get a set of keys.  
  
The kid at the counter is doped, but he recognises Jim. He hands the room keys over, but not without sneering a little, and Jim controls an urge to punch the guy on his face. The room is out back, and Jim’s hands tremble when he puts the key into the hole and slowly opens the door.  
  
The inside is quiet—and not like Jim expected it to be. Two duffel bags lie at the feet of the queen beds, open and innocent, flannel visible in both. The bathroom contains untouched toiletries and the desk has a laptop on it, sitting beside a six-pack of beer. Jim gathers them all, one-by-one, feeling them in his hands, wondering what memories each item holds, as he loads them into Brenda’s car. And then he finds the keys to his beautiful classic car, a car he immediately recognises as a ‘sixty-seven Chevy Impala, and he can’t help but metaphorically pat himself on the back.  
  
Undoubtedly, he is  _awesome_.  
  
The kid at the reception confirms what the cops said. “Huge guy, your brother,” he says. “I was wonderin’ if it’d be a king, an’ he clarified you were bros.” He sniggers, as though this is funny in some way, and Jim raises an eyebrow.  
  
“Did you see him leave?”  
  
“Yep,” the boy replies. “But you two didn’t leave together. You went first, and then him.”  
  
“Anything else you noticed? Anything weird?”  
  
The teenager scratches his head, fixing Jim with a bewildered expression. “That’s all, man. I told ‘em cops too.”  
  
Jim turns away, disappointed that there isn’t more to go on. But the cops are looking for Harry, and Jim will, too.  
  
0  
  
_Sammy._  
  
It’s the same place. The park. The big, yellow moon, and Sam.  
  
Dean walks forward, eyeing the rusty merry-go-round, and remembering the time they’d spent in that small, almost-nameless town in Missouri—two whole months, while their father had gone about hunting all kinds of crap and leaving Sam and Dean to their devices. It had been fun, and although Dean can’t bring himself to remember the name of the town, it had been one of the best times of his life.  
  
And he sees Sam sitting there and thinks of everything in his life that’s been good.  
  
He takes a step forward, dying to get to Sam, dying to go and hug him, but his legs are tied and Sam won’t look back.  
  
Just when he thinks that, Sam turns around.  _Dean?_  
  
Dean smiles at him, taking in the hair and the stupid eyes and the Sasquatch height. _Sammy._  
  
He wants to wake up from this with his brother yelling at him from the other bed to shut the fuck up. Dean wants to go down to the diner and watch his brother drop a classic bitchface at him when he orders extra-greasy bacon, and he wants to dump extra sugar in Sam’s hoity-toity, whipped cream latte or chai tea latte or whatever the fuck that kid drinks. He wants to hear Sam whine and complain and bitch and glare and huff at him and then come back with the perfect plan to annoy Dean after all that.  
  
But he knows that won’t happen. Inside him, he knows. One of them is dead. They just don’t know who.  
  
Dean needs his brother to help find out why all of this is happening.   
  
He is so scared.  
  
Sam’s whole expression changes, from worry to downright terrified.  _Dean, where are you?_  He gasps, eyes growing big and concerned. His breath catches in his throat. _D-Dean?_  
  
Sam’s the one who can figure this out. Sam’s the smart one. Sam will know.  
  
Dean wants to tell him, but he can’t. He wants to tell Sam about it—but he can’t, and he opens his mouth, feeling worn-out as he says,  _Sammy, help._  
  
Sam tries to come forward, but he wavers and vanishes into thin air, leaving a breeze, a whisper behind him.  
  
_Dean._  
  
0  
  
When Jim wakes up again without a memory, Sam and Brenda hand him a journal before telling him all they know about who he is. And that’s how Jim learns how to re-educate himself every day. That’s how Jim starts recording the diary, so that he can catch up on lost information.   
  
And every day, he discovers something new—that he hadn’t on the previous day.   
  
0  
  
Jim is not quite prepared to go through his and his brother’s things. He doesn’t know what to expect from that life, with the seedy motel room, the instinct to escape all legal officers, and that sexy muscle car of his.   
  
What’s worse is that he knows he’ll forget it all by the next morning.  
  
How do people live their lives one day at a time? Because this is so literal, it sucks. Jim just wishes there was a quick fix to this, his condition, but he is also very sure that he wants to find his family first, before he settles down to fix whatever the fuck has gone wrong with his grapefruit. And then, maybe his brother will help him look for the rest of the things he needs. Maybe Harry will remind Jim of everything, and they’ll visit a good doctor about this all, and try to get it back in line. Jim knows that his brother will still be a stranger to him every single day, but then these two women, Brenda and Samantha and their son, they’re all  _actually_  strangers, and even though they’re kind, they’re not family, and Jim innately knows that.  
  
However, he is not prepared to see what he finds in the duffels, or in his car. He is not prepared for any of it.  
  
It’s easy to recognise his duffel, for some reason. It’s the one where the clothes aren’t folded, just tucked messily inside. He picks up a shirt and it’s his size. Carefully, he takes out his things and puts them aside, inspecting them all. He meticulously segregates his clothes, checking his pockets for something,  _anything_ , but finds absolutely no evidence of his previous life. However, a few seconds later, he nearly freaks out when his fingers land on the butt of a gun.  
  
Jim lets out an involuntary gasp, stepping away from his duffel, his whole body beginning to tremble. What is this? What the  _fuck_  is this? Who is he?  
  
He takes a breath, shoves his hand back in, and pulls out the gun, handling it delicately, but instinctively knowing that it’s locked, and that he can’t just set it off like that. It’s a Beretta, and Jim freezes for a moment, hating that he knows what it is.  
  
In his other life, he probably didn’t hate it that much.  
  
He recovers a moment later, surprised that he’s not more shocked about this, and he remembers how Brenda had spoken about him escaping the hospital, and how he knows in his gut that he doesn’t trust authorities. Maybe that’s the kind of a man that he is. He doesn’t trust easy. He probably has a license for the gun too; he’s pretty sure of it.   
  
So what? It’s not like he’s killed anybody.  
  
Has he?  
  
Jim’s brother’s duffel is no different, except the clothes in there are huge. Jim considers his own height to be pretty good, but when he holds up the plaid shirt from the other duffel, he wonders if his brother was some kind of a Sasquatch. And it makes him chuckle, until he finds a gun in there, too. It’s a Taurus, neat and carved, and sitting there innocently at the bottom of the bag.  
  
This time, though, Jim decides to ignore the gun, and moves on quickly to pocket his brother’s phone, which he finds in one of the side-zips. The laptop bag has a giant-ass, heavy laptop, and a leather-bound, tan diary of sorts. Jim opens it, to find the picture of a young Marine, which he holds at eye-level, turning it about for some info disappointed when he finds none.  
  
However, his eyes land on the initials, carved into the leather and he moves his finger over it, feeling the rise and sink of the old, worn cover.  
  
_HW_  
  
There’s something satisfying about fingering the random alphabets like that, but Jim stops, moving to the first page, which is covered in plastic and contains strange photos. His eyes land on the flap in the cover, where another picture is tucked away.  
  
He pulls it out, heart beating fast when he sees what’s on it.  
  
The photo has Jim with another, younger guy. The other man is tall as fuck, as Jim expected, and he’s looking down towards Jim, his mouth widened in laughter as he holds a hand to his chest. Jim is looking away from him, grinning sheepishly, and both their eyes sparkle in happiness as they revel in whatever inside joke they’re sharing, their stance and their postures reflecting a lifetime of knowing each other.  
  
Jim doesn’t quite know why, but his chest tightens and his throat constricts as he turns the picture around. There’s nothing written on the back, but this man—Jim’s brother, as he’s sure of it now—is out there somewhere, with those long dimples and that open smile and the great, big head with the fringed mop of hair. And he is hopefully looking for Jim, just like Jim is looking for him.  
  
Because Jim refuses to believe that his brother is dead.   
  
0  
  
The leather-bound journal is crazy.   
  
There are theories, myths, diagrams and symbols that Jim can’t even begin to understand. It looks Satanic and weird, and makes Jim not want to think about it. He steels himself to read it. Because he needs all the information he can get. And when he reads them, the entries feel familiar, like they were in him all this time, just waiting to be reawakened. His gut tingles at the sight of the diagram of a  _Wendigo_  and the vampires and demons and werewolves, and Jim really hopes that someone from his family was researching to write a novel or something.  
  
_Or something._  Right.  
  
He abandons the journal when his skin begins to rises in goosebumps at every word. He heads to his car, not yet realising that if the journal and the duffel bags were putting him off like this, he isn’t remotely ready for what’s in the car.  
  
He opens the door. Brenda and Samantha are sitting inside the house, reading to Jason, and he can listen to their soft voices from where he is. They decided to honour his privacy and leave him alone a while, and Jim is grateful to both of them. He isn’t sure he could have handled this properly if they’d stuck around for company.  
  
He peeks into the car, finding nothing out of the ordinary at first. There is a cardboard box that is filled with cassettes, tucked neatly below the bench seat on the floorboard. There’s food wrappers here and there, empty lunch sacks from McDonald’s and Taco Bell and KFC, and Jim holds his tongue between his teeth as he opens the glove compartment, only to find a cardboard box with another gun by its side, accompanied by a flashlight.  
  
Jim doesn’t disturb the gun as he reaches for the box. When he peeks in, his heart almost misses a beat. There are fake badges in there. FBI, the US Marshalls, Homeland Security, CDC, the works—every legal authority ever—and Jim puts the box down on the seat for a moment, sitting next to it and switching off his flashlight. He wonders who he’s murdered. Because, guns? Escaping the cops? Fake badges? Jim must be a murderer.  
  
He doesn’t feel like a bad person, though. Is that because he’s forgotten who he is? Did he deserve to be buried alive?—and, he cringes—did his brother deserve the same?  
  
That kid on the photo, the giant man-child with the illegal hair couldn’t be a murderer, and Jim somehow knows it in his heart. He might doubt himself, but he can’t doubt his brother for some reason, and he knows it’s that deep-seated instinct that’s at play again.  
  
He can’t be wrong, though, can he? About his brother?  
  
Jim sighs and gets up, shutting the creaking car door behind him as he heads to the trunk, warily this time. He’s had enough shocks in one day to last him a lifetime—if he wakes up remembering these, that is.   
  
He is already so tired of this.  
  
Brushing a hand over his forehead, Jim unlocks the trunk and opens it, shining his flashlight in, but seeing nothing. However, as he runs his hand over the bottom, knocking on it and feeling for anything, any evidence, he realises that it is false, and Jim’s heart races, thoughts doing crazy circles as he lifts it.  
  
There are more weapons inside.  
  
Jim has seen three guns today, but he finds himself confused, blinking, as he spots the knives of so many shapes and sizes; bowies, penknives, switchblades, silver knives, throwing knives, daggers, machetes, axes, stakes, and a tangle of rosaries, bottles of water, long cylindrical containers of salt, bullet cases, shotguns, and Jim doesn’t even know how he can tell one weapon from the other at this point. His eyes land, at last, on a small wooden box, which he pulls out and opens, relieved to find more photos.  
  
He supposes he should also be relieved that there doesn’t seem to be a corpse inside this car.  
  
Jim takes the box back to the front and adjusts the flashlight to stand against the seat as he settles himself in, and pulls out the first photo.  
  
It’s a family. There’s a man, ruddy and dark-haired, smiling to show off the same dimples as Sasquatch. And then there’s a woman, a beautiful woman, her eyes soft and happy, snuggling to the man as she holds up a baby. The ruddy man has his arm around another child, a little kid with straight, blonde hair and mischievous eyes.  
  
Jim’s hands are shaking again as he turns the photo around. This time, he finds writing on the back:  
  
_The Winchesters_  
  
_John, Mary, Dean and Little Sammy_  
  
“Sammy,” Jim whispers, feeling the goosebumps rise all over him again. He finds his phone, and the other one from his brother’s duffel. Then he finds Sam in his contacts, and dials the number.  
  
His brother’s phone rings, and Jim looks at the screen to find his name, but instead he sees—  
  
_Dean._  
  
He cancels the call.   
  
Sam. His brother. The name makes his heart sink, weighing him with sadness, and he knows that Sammy is a nickname, but the familiarity of it—the weight of everything behind that name—makes Jim unable to breathe a while.  
  
_Sammy._  
  
Jim’s real name is Dean. His brother is called Sam.  
  
And his credit card is fake.

0

Jim takes a while to think of himself as Dean.  _Dean Winchester_.  
  
True, the name 'Jim' has been on his mind barely a few hours, and he’ll forget it anyway, but Dean seems more…  _heavy_. It fits, though. He knows that he isn’t Jim. He never was. The whole name, his whole history, had seemed off, but as he thinks of Dean, it seems to fit him more.  
  
There are more photos. Of Jim— _Dean_ —as a kid, holding a baby, Sammy. And of Jim with his mother, Mary. John and Mary, and John, and then there’s no Mary anymore. The rest of the pictures are of snippets of time in between, of Jim and his brother growing up, the dimpled, soft, younger boy looking at Jim like he’s a hero in a couple of the picture. The photos refer to him as  _Sam_  or  _Sammy_ , but there’s no extension of that name.   
  
So, that’s Sam Winchester; Jim’s,  _Dean’s_  brother. And this is their life. Obscure enough to contain notes of vampires, werewolves, and scant family photos.  
  
Jim isn’t sure how he dealt with it all.   
  
0  
  
“I know my real name.”  
  
It’s late at night, and Jim clutches the photos to himself, along with the journal in his other hand. Samantha and Brenda are sitting in the dining room, talking softly, the dim light from the lamp beside them accentuating the shadows underneath their eyes and highlighting the grey streaks in their hair.   
  
Samantha looks up at Jim, crow’s feet appearing on the corners of her eyes as she smiles. “Hey! Sit down!”  
  
“My name’s Dean Winchester,” Jim says breathlessly.  
  
Brenda nods. “Okay, Dean, you—”  
  
“I think I’m a criminal.”  
  
The words are out of Jim’s mouth quicker than he can think. He looks away, moving his tongue over his lips avoiding eye contact with Brenda or Samantha, but when they don’t talk for a while, he looks back at them, swallowing, fully expecting them to be pissed.  
  
He doesn’t expect the nonchalance, though.  
  
He blinks. “You gonna say something?”  
  
Brenda looks at Samantha, and then at Jim. She gestures to the chair beside hers. “Sit.”  
  
“But—”  
  
“We knew there was something off about you, okay?” Brenda says.  
  
Jim stands there, unmoving. “Okay.”  
  
“Will you sit already?”  
  
He takes the seat, his bewilderment rising. “My little brother’s name is Sam,” he says to Samantha, whose lips curl upwards, softly, in amusement.  
  
“Hence my name when you’re asleep.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“You called out to Sam a few times, when you slept,” Brenda clarifies. “You seem to do it when you’re having a bad dream.”  
  
“Oh.” Jim feels the colour rising up his cheeks. Why would he call out to his  _little_  brother for comfort? Shouldn’t it be the other way round?  
  
“You don’t have to embarrassed,” Sam interrupts his thoughts. “This just shows that you’re close to your brother, and that’s a good thing. Maybe he’s looking for you too, and you’ll find him sooner than you think.”  
  
“So,” Brenda says, “what did you find, that freaked you out so much?”  
  
Jim swallows. “Guns. And… a really weird journal.”  
  
“How many guns?”  
  
“You don’t want to know,” Jim scoffs.  
  
“And the journal?”  
  
“All sorts of crazy stuff,” Jim replies in a low voice, looking at a point beyond the women. “Like werewolves, and vampires… and I don’t know.”  
  
There is silence. Jim finally meets eyes with Samantha, who looks pale, and then Brenda, who’s looking down at her hands, resolve on every inch of her face. Jim swallows. “Guess I should leave…”  
  
“You know,” Brenda says suddenly, before he can continue, “the night I found you… it was pretty weird.”  
  
Jim grips the armrest of his chair. “Tell me again?”  
  
“You were buried alive,” she says. “And not for long, I am sure, because then you’d be dead. And, when I entered the graveyard… I saw a light.”  
  
“A light?”  
  
She nods. “I just know… whoever it is that put you and your brother there, did it pretty quickly. I mean, to bury you both, fill the grave and run away, and…”  
  
“… And?”  
  
“And your brother wasn’t there when they dug you up. Not only had this grave-digging dude put you in there and escaped, all in a couple of minutes, your brother disappeared.”  
  
Jim’s heart sinks. “Do you know anything about Sam?”  
  
“No,” Brenda says, “but… I just… maybe there are things out there we don’t know about?” She sounds apprehensive as she says it.  
  
Jim raises an eyebrow. “You don’t believe that, do you?”  
  
“Your journal…”  
  
“You think it’s a real vampire? Or a werewolf or... or… a demon?”  
  
Brenda doesn’t respond, and Jim blinks once, raking his fingers through his hair. “I dunno, Brenda.”  
  
“It’s a thought.”  
  
He swallows. “Yeah. A thought. And… maybe we should stop thinking about it so much, but if there’s evidence…”  
  
“I think the evidence I got was pretty big,” Brenda says, her eyes meeting Jim’s. He sees the firmness there, and nods.  
  
“We’ll find out.”  
  
“Yeah, we will,” Brenda agrees.  
  
0  
  
Jim relearns his name as Dean when he wakes up again with no memories. The days go by, breezy, white, black, and everything in between. Jason learns how to colour, albeit outside the lines, and Dean accompanies Samantha to the day care every day, watching her take care of the little helpless souls, and hiding in time from the parents when they arrive to collect their children. The newspapers have plastered his face everywhere, and Dean’s really not in the mood for answering questions.  
  
Brenda’s students gift her a recording of them playing ‘Hey There Delilah’ and it’s perfect enough to be constantly playing in the background during dinner times. Dean actually thinks he spotted tears in Brenda’s eyes.   
  
Later, Brenda explains to Dean about how she had dedicated the song to Samantha when they’d met two years ago. She’d strummed it on her ukulele, and Samantha had loved it. It’s always been their song.  
  
“I have a song for everyone,” she says, while they’re sitting on the balcony with her ukulele one day.  “A special song. It’s just something I like to do with my uke.”  
  
Dean raises an eyebrow. “ _Everyone_  you know?”  
  
“Usually. People I know  _well_. For you, though…” She squints. “I don’t know.”  
  
“You don’t have a song for me?” Dean asks her, pretending to be offended.  
  
She smiles. “Maybe someday.”  
  
He laughs, an open, long laugh that escapes him after what feels like ages. And not even ages since he woke up. He wonders what sorrows he’s forgotten, and thinks of the oversized clothes in the  _other_  duffel. And he glances at Brenda. “I gotta go.”  
  
She’s confused. “Where?”  
  
“The Sasquatch dude. Sammy. I need to find him, you know.” He tries to make it funny.   
  
Brenda doesn’t laugh. She doesn’t even smile. She just pushes a hand through her hair and stands up. “Come on.”  
  
“You stay,” Dean says. “You love Uke Hour.”  
  
“Well.” She shrugs. “There’s things on this planet that are more important.”  
  
“Like my brother?”  
  
“Like your brother.”  
  
They talk of it like Dean’s bother still lives. Like it isn’t a big possibility that he’s dead. Like the fact that Dean wakes up with nothing to remember, every time he shuts his eyes, is of small consequence. Like the world around Dean isn’t crumbling away like paper charring after flames have licked it.  
  
0  
  
Once again, Dean dreams of the same playground. The merry-go-round creaks as it starts rotating slowly, the swings cutting through the air like ridiculously big pendulums, and there’s Sam, sitting there, shoulders all wide and brooding.  
  
_Sammy_.  
  
Dean needs to escape this. He needs to get to Sam. He runs towards his brother, the soles of his feet cutting themselves on the stray pebbles, and Sam’s there—right there, not turning around, and—  
  
_Sam._  
  
Sam turns to look at him. His lips press together, forehead crinkling, as he makes his way to Dean. And Dean can’t hold it anymore. He moves farther.  
  
_Sammy, help._  
  
Sam blinks once, twice, and swallows before talking, tears in his eyes and his voice.  _I’m trying. Tell me where you are._  
  
He doesn’t know. Where is he? What is his world? Where is Sam?  
  
Dean just wants Sam back. He wants to say that, to convey that, but he opens his mouth only to find pleas coming out of it.  
  
_Please. Sammy, please._  
  
_Dean?_  Sam looks terrified. He raises a hand towards Dean, and Dean takes another step forward.  
  
_Please,_ he says to Sam, voice falling to a whisper.  
  
_Where are you, Dean?_  Sam repeats, voice choked up and eyes still moist as they widen with emotion.  _Just tell me._   _I’ll help. I’ll help you_. He quickens his footsteps as he stumbles towards Dean, but he’s growing only farther and farther away. Sliding back, sinking into the horizon, until…  
  
Dean wants to say it, but he can’t. There’s a lock on his tongue, on him, and he watches Sam fade away as he asks his brother for one last favour.  
  
_Sammy, hurry._  
  
0  
  
From the brown journal, Dean figures that Sam, that Sasquatch brother of his, probably was a nerd of some sort and keeps the journal hidden in the other duffel. He doesn’t think of what Brenda had said about the light and the grave. It’s easier to live in denial, and he regrets thinking like this, but he just wants what is easy right now.   
  
Every morning or every afternoon that he wakes up a blank slate, he reads through what he’s written in his own journal, about his days at Brenda’s and Samantha’s, about how far he’s gotten into searching for his brother, and about the beautiful Impala that now sits locked up at this place. He learns more through each day, even though everything he touches is lost in the dark hours of the night.   
  
Brenda and Samantha have a picture of themselves for him on one of the walls in the guest room, explaining about themselves and Jason, so that Dean won’t get alarmed. As each day passes, it gets easier to catch up on it all, to relearn everything a little quicker, as he can see from the records on his diary. Eventually, hope breaks through the clouds in huge beams as it shines about Dean, whispering in his ear and motivating him to keep going.  
  
So he goes on.  
  
The police are still investigating his case, and each day, they are getting closer to Sam— at least according to Brenda, who does end up finding her song for Dean.  
  
They’re on the balcony, sipping on a Bud each, and Brenda rests the ukulele in her lap as she looks at the velvet-blue night, her eyes reflecting the thousand pinpricks of starlight. Sam is sitting inside with Jason, and Dean can hear the voices, pleasant, happy and enthusiastic. He smiles, feeling his heart lifting at all that. Brenda continues to tune the ukulele, and Dean lets his eyes fall on it, interested and wondering about the song.  
  
“You’ll hate this,” Brenda declares, when she’s finally done tuning.   
  
“Because you’re playing it on the ukulele?” Dean raises an eyebrow.  
  
“I think.”  
  
“Nah, I won’t.”  
  
“You’ve seen your car, right? It’s got classic rock  _cassettes_  in it. And you still love listening to them. I’ll be ruining one of your favourite songs for you.”  
  
“Well, maybe I’ve forgotten everything about me and my family, but I know Metallica.” Dean feels bitter as he says it. He thinks of the journal that he found, with the initials  _H.W._  He thinks of the photo of the young marine, his father, on the first page. Did those people like Metallica, too?  
  
“Pretty sure you’ll hate it,” Brenda says again. She tests the ukulele, plucking a couple of strings before turning to Dean. “Ready?”  
  
“I think.”  
  
A smile ghosts her lips as she begins to play, humming a familiar tune.  
  
Her voice is slightly hoarse, but strong and peaceful all at once, and Dean leans back as she starts to sing.  
  
_“There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold_  
_And she's buying a stairway to heaven…”_  
  
  
0  
  
Dean is walking to the playground, feet landing on pebbles, but he knows who’s here. He knows…  
  
The playground comes into view. Sam does too, and there’s something on Sam’s shoulder. A bird.  
  
Suddenly, Dean feels something on his own shoulder. The bird. It’s a raven, and its talons make holes in his shirt as he stops, bringing up a hand to shoo it away. It doesn’t leave.  
  
_Where’s Muninn?_  It asks.  _You lost Muninn._  
  
Dean raises an eyebrow. What the fuck is this? He looks ahead at Sam, determined to ignore this stupid raven.  
  
_Sammy?_  
  
Sam is still sitting with his back to Dean, but he tenses. And then he turns, eyes questioning, and Dean’s heart sinks at what he hears from his brother.  _Are you really Dean?_  
  
Dean raises an eyebrow, ready to give Sam a sarcastic reply, but all resolve is draining out of him, and wherever he’s stuck, he realises he just wants out. He wants to be with Sam and he wants to sort out this problem, and…  
  
_Help._ The words are out of Dean’s mouth before he can even think.  
  
_Dean is in Hell,_  Sam replies, his voice shattering in the way that Dean’s heart is.  _Who are you?_  
  
No, no, his time hasn’t come. His time hasn’t come yet, has it? And, suddenly, Dean hears the growling of a dog. The air around him shifts, and he feels like he’s being sucked out.  
  
He’s going to Hell. He doesn’t want to go. He doesn’t want to leave.  
  
Sam’s shrinking away as Dean feels himself getting sucked back, the growling and snapping of a hellhound hot in his ear, and he raises his hand.  _Sammy, please._  
  
Sam just shakes his head, disbelievingly, as he moves farther away.  _Who are you? Get the fuck out of here._  His voice trembles.  _Get out._  
  
_Sammy. Sam, help,_ Dean thinks, and Sam looks miserable, chest heaving as the hellhound growls in Dean’s ear again.  
  
_You’re not Dean,_  Sam says, voice thick and throaty.  _Leave!_  
  
The hellhound snarls, and Dean feels all resolve break.  
  
_Okay, Sammy._  
  
The only thing after that is pure agony.  
  
0  
  
Brenda wakes up to Sam’s screaming. Her heart jumps in great leaps and bounds as she sits up in bed and the next moment, she wraps a robe around her frame and rushes out of the room barefoot.  
  
She finds her girlfriend in the guestroom, pointing at something, and Brenda takes two steps and looks in, feeling bile rise up in her throat.  
  
Dean Winchester is lying there, on the cold wooden floor, and if the rips on his body and the pool of blood are anything to go by, he is most definitely dead.

 

**0000000000000000**


	6. Chapter 6

 

  
**Book Two**

  


 

 

  
**_Four Months Later_**  
  
**_September, 2008_**  
  
_Pitter-patter, pitter-patter._  
  
Sam ignores the rain outside and leans against the headboard of his bed, fingering the frayed edges of the photo in his hand. The glossy finish of the thick material is strewn with fingerprints, the borders bent and almost tearing away. Water stains the photo in parts, ruining most of it, but not the entire thing. Because the part that's important to Sam is still pristine and unspoiled.  
  
He sighs, pulling the photo to eye-level and looking at the faces in it for the umpteenth time.   
  
“Where are you, Dean?” he whispers softly, his voice dissipating into the air like mist on a cold morning.  
  
The raindrops get heavier against the roof. Sam glances outside at the foggy atmosphere. The trees are green, but that’s all he can see, because everything that is further away is obscured by the thick drops that are falling down from the sky. Not a great day to drive around, but it’s not like Sam’s going anywhere today.   
  
He turns back to the picture. Dean looks young and happy, his smile wide and eyes daringly green as he looks at the camera, an arm pulled loosely and casually around Sam. The Impala sits there in the background, gleaming majestically in the autumn sunlight.  
  
It looks like a perfectly happy picture, and Sam scoffs at the thought. Happiness is nothing but an illusion in his and Dean’s lives. It’s momentary and half-hearted; like there’s no one anywhere that’d rather he and Dean be happy.  
  
He pockets the photo, shutting his eyes and listening to the rain. He is used to it, bored of it, and he just wishes the clouds would clear away for once. It’s been raining a few days now, and Sam can feel his mood lilt and sway like the swirling tornadoes of gloom that’s not leaving the air these days.  
  
He feels like his mind is full of clouds too—dark and heavy, and desperate to unload, and sometimes he is jealous that the clouds can produce thunder and rain, because all he wants to do  is scream and roar out all his agony and pain, and not be worried about anything. He had never thought it’d be this hard. He had known it would be difficult—terrible—but this exceeds all of his expectations. He doesn’t know how to feel. He doesn’t know how to react most of the time, because he has already spent a lot of time reacting and shedding tears and bargaining and begging and hoping, and none of it worked. Now he’s just accepted defeat.  
  
Ruby has told him why it is like this. She’s explained most of the things around here. Lilith. The answer to everything is Lilith. Lilith, who is set to ruin Sam’s life. Her name, the sound of it and the thought of it, makes Sam clench his fists in anger every time. Because he wants Lilith dead, and he wants her dead  _now_. He wants Dean back. He wants his big brother back.  
  
Sam bites his lip as the agony begins to pour in. He can’t bear to think of it. He squeezes his eyes shut and coaxes himself to take deep breaths. He just wishes Dean would be back. He’s been wishing that for so long, and yet, there’s nothing—no hope, and he hates this. He hates feeling this way, and being this way.  
  
The bathroom door swings open abruptly. Sam opens his eyes to see Ruby emerge from there, stark yellow light flooding into the room, before she flicks the switch off. For a demon, Ruby can be quite sanitary.  
  
She smiles at him. She’s in a new body, because Lilith ruined her old one. This time it’s a petite brunette with dark eyes, and a face that Sam would consider pretty, had he not known that there was a demon in the body. Ruby says that this woman was in a coma, in the hospital, and that her soul had been long gone when she possessed her.   
  
Sam thinks he believes Ruby. She has been going out of her way to gain his trust, after all.  
  
When Sam doesn’t smile back at Ruby, she sighs. “Sam, come on.”  
  
He crosses his arms against his chest and shuts his eyes. “Wish it would stop raining.” He wants a lot of other things to stop too, but he doesn’t voice that.  
  
The mattress dips as he feels Ruby’s weight on it. There’s a hand on his cheek. “You know what you need to do for Dean.” He opens his eyes and looks into hers. She leans closer. “You know what you have to do, Sam.”  
  
He flinches away from her hand. “No, Ruby.”  
  
“Come on,” she says, her voice dropping to a whisper. “What is a single try going to do to you? If it doesn’t work out—”  
  
“Dean wouldn’t like it.”  
  
“But Dean isn’t here,” Ruby replies, getting onto her knees and coming over to straddle him. She cups his neck and rubs against his cheek with her thumb, as she leans forward to kiss him. Their lips connect and her tongue lightly teases him, sweeping over the border of his mouth, before she pulls away, her face lingering an inch from his. Sam feels a spark of electricity pass through his nerves, and he tries to push Ruby away completely, but she catches his hands with hers. Then she leans over and plants kisses on his neck, her tongue wet and soft against his skin, while her lips suck slowly, her breaths tickling him.   
  
His dick stirs underneath his boxers.  
  
His hands loosen on hers, and she works her way through with her lips, over his neck, on his jaw, and behind his ear. Her hand wanders down to his jeans. He hears his zipper open and feels her hand finding his half-hard cock. Sam gasps.  
  
“I know how to get you back your life, Sam,” she murmurs against his lips, as she traces circles on him. He moans, as blood pounds in his ears. His heart goes crazy in his chest. His breaths catch in his lungs and he squeezes his eyes shut, his jaw dropping slightly as Ruby kisses the corner of his mouth, and catches his lips between hers.   
  
Her fingers continue to work on him, teasing and tantalising. Goosebumps rise all over Sam’s arm and he’s growing hard, thick dampness spreading through the front of his boxers.   
  
Ruby grasps Sam’s hair and gasps against his lips. “Come on,” she persuades him, another finger joining the first to stroke him. She caresses and pulls at sensitive skin, and dips her face, lips velvety as she begins to suck at his neck.  
  
He shudders beneath her, his entire system sparking and short-circuiting with excitement, as his heart beats faster and faster. Her fingers proceed to his shaft and trace down to the bottom, and the wet, cottony material of his boxers rubs against his hard cock, her hand light as a feather, and yet, arousing him enough to send him into a frenzy. Her fingers stroke again and again, endlessly, up and down, and then around in circles and Sam’s breaths hitch as she goes faster and faster. He can feel the throbbing, impending, building pleasure, and his toes are curling, more goosebumps making an appearance, as Ruby breathes faster and faster against his neck.  
  
He wants her, he wants her so  _bad_. He wants to rip her clothes off and pull off his own, and fuck her and fuck her, but… but…  
  
“N-No,” he gasps against her lips, his breath catching in his throat as her fingers begin to go quicker still, gripping his head and stroking the base and over the shaft. His body quivers. “No,” he chokes again.  
  
“Just once,” she says. “Just hear me out this one time.”  
  
Her touch is frantic, the slight friction doing nothing to ease his excitement. He can feel the rush of blood in his head, and he’s trembling all over until—  
  
“No.” He comes in his boxers. She grips his cock, and his body bucks up once. He’s breathing fast, sweat pouring down his forehead, and he’s warm and cold and his heart wants to escape his chest.   
  
He reaches to push her away. “N-No.”  
  
Her hand leaves and she leans away from him, but he gently shoves at her to have her get off him. She narrows her eyes, but obeys.  
  
He's wobbly as he gets out of his bed. Wiping his sweaty face with his t-shirt, he glances down at his still-excited cock. “I n-need to take a sh-shower,” he says, voice feeble.  
  
Ruby sighs. “Sam, hear me out.”  
  
“No,” he repeats, before going into the bathroom, and shutting the door behind him.  
  
He can feel the erection subside, and he sits on the bathroom floor, taking in shuddering breaths to wait it out. He wipes his face on the hem of his t-shirt again, and gets out of his jeans and boxers. When he hangs the jeans on one of the hooks, the old picture falls out of the pocket and lands on the tile floor, the harsh yellow light hitting Dean’s euphoric face.  
  
Sam bends over and picks it up with shaky hands, and several emotions bubble in the pit of his stomach—swirling in a whirlpool. Suddenly, he doesn’t want to do this anymore, he can’t, he can’t, he  _can’t_ …   
  
Frustrated, he throws the photo against the wall. It hits the tile and promptly lands in the bathtub, and as soon as he’s realised what he’s done, Sam’s gut turns. He doesn’t mean to be angry like this but he’s so goddamned frustrated. He’s so, so tired of looking for his brother, when he doesn’t know what the fuck happened to Dean. And he hates this. He hates this so much.  
  
He walks over to the bathtub and sits on the rim, to bend over and pick up the photo. He looks at Dean again, and a lump forms in his throat as he blinks back unbidden tears.  _Where are you, Dean?_  he thinks, as though the photo of Dean can read his thoughts, but  _fuck_ , at this point, just about anything will do, if that will bring Dean back.   
  
On the second of May, Dean was supposed to go to Hell. But it’s been long since, and Sam knows where Dean should be—but he never saw Dean go to Hell, and he’s not buying this—not believing until he  _knows_  it happened. Because, if Dean were already in the Pit, he would have known. Sam would have known.  
  
Dean is in Hell.   
  
Dean is in fucking Hell.  
  
Sam sniffs and licks his lower lip, before taking a small breath. He shuts his eyes and leans tiredly against the wall and hopes, hopes, hopes for some evidence— _something_  to show up, so he can know about how to get Dean back. He wants this crappiness to go away. He just wants Dean to be okay. Because, really, he  _can’t_.    
  
_Wish you’d come back, bro,_  he thinks, smiling lightly at how Dean would mock him brutally for even having thoughts like this. Outside, he hears Ruby leave his room, and the loneliness settles in again, stretching over everything like a cold, black cloud.  
  
0  
  
The thin froth floats about in clusters of bubbles, gathering around Sam’s arms as he adjusts himself in the bathtub. The water is warm, and Sam soaks himself, feeling his tense muscles relax in it. The suds sizzle lightly as Sam scoops some up in one hand, feeling the cloudy-light soap before rubbing the lather on his arm. He leans back against the wall, shutting his eyes as his thoughts exit their cage and run about his head.  
  
It’s been four months since Dean left and never came back. Four months since Dean ceased to exist for everyone, and Bobby and Ellen turned into monsters. Four months since Dean was supposed to go to Hell (and probably went to Hell, too).  Well, of course, there is confirmation that Dean’s in Hell, but Sam doesn’t know whether he should believe that.  
  
Where has Dean gone? What if he’s not in Hell? What if he died, and Sam’s just here, fighting for nothing? What if the best option is to just follow…?  
  
Sam looks at the soapy layers of bathwater as it licks his bare skin. What would happen if he slipped under, and never got up?   
  
How dignified is it to die while drowning in your own filth?  
  
Death. Death is never dignified. You can die a hero’s death or a quiet death that wasn’t mourned at all, but dying isn’t dignified. You’re messed up and helpless and the only thing your body does in those last moments is misfire. You don’t just die all pretty and perfect. It’s always messy and terrible and horrifying.  
  
There is nothing dignified about dying. Dean always said that.  
  
But, Dean is gone, and Sam…  
  
Maybe the only dignified thing that Sam can do now is to die and follow Dean. Maybe being with his big brother will sort everything out for good. Maybe…  
  
“Sam?”  
  
He didn’t hear the door open, but Sam gathers up some more lather when he hears the familiar voice. “In here.”  
  
The door opens and Sam doesn’t shift from his place when Ruby enters, a small smile on her face. “I see that you decided to relax.”  
  
Sam looks down. “That last hunt for Lilith fucking killed my back.”  
  
He hears her sigh and she moves, all leather and denim, and he knows what she’s trying to do—what everything she does and talks and says means, and he wishes she’d stop trying to be Dean. Because Dean was Dean, and  _nothing_ , no one can take his place for Sam; least of all,  _Ruby_.  
  
Her new vessel seems to suit her better than the old one, though, and her sharp, dark eyes and full lips project determination that Sam hadn’t quite seen in that other vessel. He avoids her and pretends not to notice as she meanders her way in through the small bathroom and perches at the end of the bathtub.   
  
Her fingers find his hair and tangle with it, almost gently.  
  
“You got any info on Dean?” Sam asks her. “Lilith?”  
  
There is silence, and Ruby’s fingers move to the strands of hair next to Sam’s ear, tucking them back, as she bends forward and talks. “No.” She sighs. “I’m sorry she’s done this to you, Sam.”  
  
He turns slightly, catching Ruby’s eyes. “Yeah? Don’t be. Pretty soon,  _she’ll_  be sorry.” He pauses. “You sure it’s her?”  
  
Ruby nods. “I told you. This kind of magic—making Dean vanish like that, and not just physically? It’s very powerful.”  
  
“How did you evade it?”  
  
She shrugs. “I’m a witch, remember? I do have protection against Lilith’s BS.”  
  
“So you, me and Lilith are the only three people on this planet right now, who remember who Dean is?”  
  
Ruby smiles a half-smile, as she shakes her head and bends over, the tip of her nose touching the corner of Sam’s mouth. “Pretty much.” Her eyes turn soft when she raises her head and locks gazes with him again. “But we’ll find a way around it, Sam.”  
  
Sam nods, as her fingers start to travel down his jaw, her soft thumb caressing circles as it halts, and then lower, to his neck. She pauses there and bends forward, her lips touching his damp skin, enclosing the sensitive area as she gently sucks, her tongue flicking him in small strokes. Despite the fading warmth of the water he’s sitting in, Sam feels goosebumps lift on his skin.   
  
She pulls away her jacket and tosses it to the ground, and before Sam knows it, she’s in the water with him, one hand on his chest as another goes lower, to his soft cock. He jerks away the moment she touches him. “Not now, Ruby.” He barely registers the hurt on her face when he stands up and walks to the towel rack, feeling the rivulets of water run down his body, leaving cool trails on his skin.  
  
“By the way,” Ruby calls out from the bathtub where she’s still sitting, wet and fully-clothed, “Dean is in Hell. You know that, right? He really is in Hell.”   
  
Sam sighs and pulls a towel around his waist, feeling damp strands of his hair stick to his neck. He’s used to Ruby being like this. It’s not like he can feel any worse than he already does. And fuck Ruby and her demon tactics anyway.   
  
“I know.” He says, as he grits his teeth. “I’ll get him back.”  
  
0  
  
If Sam has to talk about the worst time in his life, it would most definitely be these four months. Nothing comes even close to this. Not the six pseudo-months in the Trickster’s world, and hell, not even Jess or Dad’s deaths. Of course it’s not like that was any better, losing Dad and Jess, but Dean, Dean is different. Dean is…  _Dean_. Sam can’t explain it any better to even himself. Dean is just Dean, and nothing can take the pain away, or fill the pit that Dean’s left behind in Sam’s life. Sam knows he’ll kill himself getting Dean back, but he’ll do it. Dammit, he’ll do it. He needs this. He needs this for himself.  
  
Ruby keeps coming back with her taunting. “You know what it will take,” she says. “You know it will help, Sam.”  
  
Sam is sitting on the couch of an old apartment he’s rented with some of the money he gathered and saved from hustling. The sofa is lumpy and the upholstery is peeling away, bits of fabric sticking up here and there. This place isn’t the greatest, but it’s the best Sam can afford.   
  
He looks up at Ruby and narrows his eyes. “You know what my answer is.”  
  
“But—”  
  
“Dean wouldn’t like it,” he insists. He knows she can’t understand—she’s a fucking demon, after all, but he really wishes she did. He wishes someone understood. That someone  _got_  him (and then, sometimes, even Dean didn’t get him, but Dean is Dean).  
  
“Sam,” Ruby reasons, pulling something out of her pocket and dangling it in front of his eyes. It’s a hex bag. She jiggles it, the baby/cat/dog/whatever (Sam doesn’t want to think of it) bones making a rattling sound inside the fabric. She puts the hex bag on the armrest beside Sam. “These will only hold for so long, you know. I have hidden you from demons now, but this won’t work forever.”  
  
“I know how to kill demons,” Sam tells her through clenched teeth. “If you have nothing better to offer, please leave.”  
  
“Sammy—”  
  
“Don’t you fucking call me that.”  The words are out of Sam’s mouth in a second before Ruby can even react, and Sam’s head snaps up, eyes boring into her kohl-lined ones. He can feel the anger inside him, white-hot and charring his nerve endings as they sear with the intensity of it, and Ruby takes two steps back.  
  
“Sorry,” she whispers. “I didn’t mean—”  
  
“Only Dean,” Sam says. “ _Only Dean_ , you get that?”  
  
“I know, I know, I—”  
  
“You’re not Dean,” Sam tells her, his anger not wanting to let her go on. How dare she? His name—his nickname—is his family’s, and only Dean’s. It was always only Dean’s, and even though Sam had never stopped his dad from calling him that, it was always only for  _Dean_. As such, as Sam’s heard a million times in his childhood, it was Dean who gave him that name in the first place. Dean was the first person to call him that. Dean will be the last person to call him that, too.   
  
He takes a deep breath, willing himself not to explode at the demon before him. “I know what you’re trying to do, Ruby,” he says, trying to sound as calm as he can, “but you’re not Dean. Don’t even try—”  
  
“Holy  _fuck_ , Sam, will you fucking listen to me?”  
  
Sam blinks up at her, and she folds her arms over her chest as she clenches her jaw once. “I’m not trying to replace Dean. I’m not stupid, okay?”  
  
“Then shut the fuck up and leave,” Sam mutters, making to get up, but Ruby moves ahead, placing a hand on his shoulder.  
  
“You think I want you to feel like I’m Dean?” she asks him. “That’s the last thing I want. You know why?”  
  
Her hand is in the place where Sam’s neck meets his shoulder and he takes it off, feeling his palm completely enclose hers. Her eyes soften, a small twinkle appearing in them as her lips start widening in a smile. “If you thought of me as Dean,” she says, her face moving closer to his, “I wouldn’t be able to do this.” Her breath ghosts in his ear as she places her lips behind it, tongue licking at the skin there.   
  
Sam shudders her away. “No, Ruby.”  
  
She moves away at once, unperturbed, although her eyes are cautious. “Sam, this is serious.”  
  
“No, I don’t think I want you to fuck me.”  
  
She takes in a sharp breath. “You  _know_  what I’m talking about.”  
  
“Yeah, and I’ll handle it.”  
  
“If those hex bags stop working—”  
  
“I told you,” Sam replies, his patience starting to drain away. “I know how to kill demons, and I’ll do it the way I can, okay?”  
  
“No, you don’t get it!”  
  
“I  _get_  that it’s wrong,” Sam tells her. “I get that Dean would hate me for it.”  
  
“Dean is dead!” Ruby snaps at him. “Dean is fucking dead, and—”  
  
“Don’t you fucking dare!” Sam’s on his feet, his breath coming in puffs as his face heats up, like someone’s set fire to his skin. He advances on Ruby, closing the gap between them, so they’re only inches apart and he squares his shoulder as he leans forward, shadowing her frame. “Don’t. You. Dare.”  
  
She doesn’t move. Instead, she bites her lower lip for a second, and then sighs. “Calm down, Sam, I’m sorry.”  
  
“No, you’re not.”  
  
“This is not the moment to fight with me.”  
  
“I don’t give a fuck about you,” he says. “I am gonna get Dean back. And while I’m at it, I’ll have Lilith’s head on a plate too.”  
  
“Yeah?” she says, “and how are you going to do it, exactly? What have you done, out of the ordinary, in these last four months that you’re so sure? Do you really think you can do it just like that? Get Dean back and kill Lilith?”  
  
He clenches his jaw, drawing himself to full height again as he replies in a low, hoarse voice. “Watch me.”  
  
She runs a tongue over her smooth lip, leaving a wet trail over soft, dry skin, and Sam feels his stomach swoop in unexpected anticipation. He stops his thoughts from drifting away, and Ruby tosses her hair back, her hands going to her hips as her eyes narrow challengingly. “Fine. I’ll watch you. Let’s see who wins this one.”  
  
She picks up her bag and heads to the door, slamming the door shut behind her as she leaves. Sam watches her walk away, feeling like the last candle of hope has just been extinguished. However, he doesn’t call her back. He doesn’t need her fucked-up solutions to his problems. He will do what he has to do, and he will prove himself to everyone who ever thought he was worthless.


	7. Chapter 7

 

 

 

 

  
_Win’…_  
  
_De’… ‘chester…_  
  
_Dean Winchester._  
  
Anna Milton sits up abruptly in her bed. Strands of her damp hair snake limply over her shoulders as sweat rolls down her forehead in glassy beads. She gathers her tresses, buns them up, rubs her eyes, and turns to check the time on her little alarm clock. She had taken a nap in the middle of studying, but she hadn’t expected that strange dream.  
  
Turns out, it’s barely fifteen minutes since she slept.  
  
Anna yawns and turns to look outside her window. The sky is slate-coloured, clouds floating about in large swirls as the wind howls and sings, the trees dancing to its songs as it passes through them. She shivers. Her dream comes back to her—the darkness and the voices that spoke, and she shivers again, wondering what that was.   
  
The voice comes back, bringing goosebumps with it, as it whispers into her ear,  _“Dean Winchester has been saved.”_  It’s gravelly and like a drone, dispassionate and business-like. Anna waits a moment, waits for the voice again. But it doesn’t come. Instead, there’s another voice.  
  
_“Thank the Lord.”_  
  
Anna processes the words for two moments before making her way into the bathroom to wash her face. The stress of this semester must be getting to her.  
  
Or so she thinks.  
  
She barely thinks of the explosive thunderstorm that follows; barely thinks of anything at all after that.  
  
In another city, far, far away, a man crawls out of his grave.  
  
0  
  
Someone buried him alive. Fuck, someone tried to  _kill_  him.  
  
That’s all he can think, and he wishes he could process better, because he can’t fucking remember who he is. All he knows is the fire. The endless heat. The pain.  
  
He doesn’t remember why all that agony was there in the first place.  
  
His clothes are dirty—graveyard dirt lodging in the creases as he dusts himself off the best he can, and gritty soil sits on his skin, causing it to itch and making him crave a shower. His throat is parched too, and he could absolutely kill for some water right now.  
  
Smacking his lips, he turns, only to lay eyes on his headstone. Wait.  _Headstone_? He blinks once, twice, against the blurring from the dirt lining his lashes, and squints.

 

 

  
**_Dean Winchester_ **  
**_January, 1979 – May, 2008_ **  
**_Loving Brother and Friend_ **

  
Oh-kay. So this creep is new. The murderer managed to produce a headstone for him—well, what is his name? Dean Winchester. Dean. So his name is Dean. Okay.   
  
He stares at the shifted soil in the graveyard and thinks about his coffin. Fresh flowers now lie scattered on the pile next to the hole that Dean just crawled out of. Someone really cared about him. He’d like to go back and announce to them that he’s still kicking, but he can’t fucking remember.  
  
This is weird.  
  
He needs to get out of here before someone thinks he robbed a grave.   
  
Dean wipes a hand across his dirty lips and starts to make his way out of the cemetery, casting a last glance at his grave, and hoping he can find his family soon.  
  
0  
  
He’s in San Antonio, Texas. True, he has to break into a small, empty Gas n’ Sip to find out, but he doesn’t feel particularly guilty. Plus, something really, really strange is going on around here. The newspaper says it’s September, and if Dean “died” in May, how the fuck did he last four months underground?  
  
Clearly, someone’s got the dates mixed up.  
  
He thinks of the fire and the pain again, and tries not to shudder.   
  
The water in the fridge is cool and the bag of Doritos is about the tastiest fucking thing Dean’s had. Once he’s eaten and drunk his fill, he stuffs his pockets with granola bars and heads out of the small shop. Then he gets walking again.   
  
It isn’t until sunset that he realises he’s being followed.  
  
At first, Dean is scared that it’s the cops. Well, he did steal in plain daylight, and his gut just  _clenches_  at the mere thought of cops, as though he hasn’t liked them for several lives, which could be true. However, he realises that cops don’t slyly follow you if you’re a criminal. Dean is unarmed and tired, and they’d get the jump on him any day. Plus, Dean can’t physically see anyone, and even cops can’t hide that well.  
  
Who is following him, then?  
  
The sun sinks farther down the sky, and Dean looks up at the red horizon, feeling every bone in his body hang loose from its joints. He needs to rest. He really wants to rest. But how can he stop whomever is following him?  
  
He stops next to a tree. A big, wide tree that has low branches which Dean can climb to get to the top, so he can sleep in peace. He stares at the top of the tree, at his comfortable-looking abode, and makes a quick decision. Maybe he should deal with this S.O.B of a stalker and finish it off right now.   
  
What if this motherfucker is stronger, though?  
  
Well, Dean will deal with it.  
  
A chilly draft of breeze blows by, and Dean is suddenly cold as balls. Shivering, he pulls his jacket closer (and damn, it’s a fine leather jacket that they put him to rest in). He clenches his fists, before speaking into the wind.   
  
“Okay,” he says, “show yourself.”  
  
There is no response. Dean licks his lower lip. He knows he’s pushing it, and that he can end up dead if he does this wrong, but what the hell. He was six-feet under for a really long time, if the newspaper and his headstone are to be believed. So he’ll chance this.   
  
“Well?” Dean says again. “Come on, you son of a bitch. Show yourself. I know you’ve been following me, and I know I’m worth it, but I ain’t that easy. Show yourself.”  
  
The wind quickens and the sky darkens, colors on the horizon shifting too quickly to be natural. Dean braces himself, and clenches his jaw when a flash of lightning strikes, followed, a few seconds later, by a grumble of thunder. And in the brightness of the electric blue, followed by the velvety blackness, Dean sees a figure—a human figure.  
  
A man is walking towards him—and he seems to be wearing a trench coat, from the way it’s billowing around his frame as he strides forward.  
  
The skies grumble again, only to let go of thick, big drops of rain. Dean makes no move for shelter, though; he only continues to stare, and watches the trench coated man advance towards him, his hair rapidly getting wet in the rain, and his eyes a piercing blue in the next flash of lightning.  
  
He walks on, until he and Dean are just a foot away, and then he stops, his head tilting as his eyes narrow. “Hello, Dean.”  
  
Dean glares at him. “Who are you?”  
  
The man takes a moment to reply, his tongue brushing against his chapped lips as he continues to stare at Dean. “My name is Castiel,” he says at long last. “I am an angel of the Lord.”  
  
“Shut up.” Dean feels laughter and hysteria and disbelief bubble up, and he tries not to smile, although Castiel doesn’t seem to think it’s funny at all. Dean shakes his head at the man. “That’s awesome, dude. Really awesome. But this is a shitty-ass prank.” He pauses. “You were following me all this time. Is there something, really something, you need to say?”  
  
If possible, Castiel’s eyes narrow even more. “This is not a joke, Dean.”  
  
“Isn’t it?”  
  
The ‘angel of the Lord’ shakes his head before straightening his shoulders and standing taller. “I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition.”  
  
Dean opens his mouth once and shuts it. “Have we met?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Okay.” Dean pauses. “Enough with the euphemisms, because, man, I don’t bat for your team and I’m sorry.”  
  
“I do not understand why a flying mammal is of any importance in this situation.”  
  
Dean blinks at Castiel. “Is this a motherfucking joke?”  
  
“You don’t need to swear.” Castiel’s constipated expression  _almost_  changes to one of offense. “I told you who I am.”  
  
“Oh, so angels exist, do they?” Dean’s heart is thumping against his chest, and he doesn’t know why. “What else are you going to tell me, huh?” he says to Castiel. “That God is real? That unicorns do actually shit rainbows?” He doesn’t know why it’s difficult for him to believe this—but it seems so ridiculous, so superfluous, that it just can’t be true.  
  
Meanwhile, Castiel looks mildly irritated. “This is your problem, Dean,” he says, and his voice reminds Dean of shoes on pebbles. “You have no faith.” And then he does the weirdest thing. He steps back, and another bolt of lightning cracks through the sky, painting Castiel blue and white. Dean’s jaw drops as he watches Castiel’s shadow on the ground behind him.  
  
Lining his frame, rising from the sides, is a pair of wings, large and expansive as they spread, their cool black shadows falling distorted on the ground. And Castiel’s eyes flash a smidgen of grey-white—just a smidgen—and suddenly Dean realises that crawling alive out of the grave has just been a start of things for him.  
  
All of this wasn’t coincidence. Nor was it someone’s mistake.  
  
Dean has literally been resurrected by a fucking angel.  
  
And thank God that this Castiel can’t seem to read minds, because Dean thinks he hates getting told off for swearing.  
  
Oh, fuck,  _God_  really exists too.  
  
0  
  
**_October, 2008_**  
  
Dean eyes the meatballs in his spaghetti as he chews down a lump of the undercooked noodles, cursing his own misjudgement for not boiling it longer. It had seemed okay at the time that he’d cooked it, but apparently not. Well, it’s a little late to put it back in the water after adding the sauce now.  
  
He sighs, grumbles to himself, grimaces as he forks some more into his mouth, and looks at the clock that hangs on the wall. Cas had said he’d be back soon, and Dean wonders what he’s up to because Cas can be entertaining company and when he’s around, Dean doesn’t feel the crushing loneliness and confusion from all the shit that’s happened to him.   
  
He eats some more, hoping there’s no seal being broken today;  he’s been going about, busting demons for a week now, and he’d really like some quiet, and maybe spend some time with Cas.   
  
The last month has been weird with a side of crazy. After Cas (well, it’s kinda stupid to call him Castiel all the time) had found Dean and shot him up with all his Angel-of-the-Lord crazies, Dean had had no choice but to believe him. After a few days, Cas turned tame, and mildly friendly. It seems like he enjoys Dean’s company as well.   
  
It turns out, Dean was in Hell all this time. How and why, Cas claims not to know but Dean is sure he’s hiding something, friend or not. Fact remains that Dean’s memories are shot to hell. Well, the  _metaphorical_  Hell.  
  
Dean had had nothing to go by for his identity, except for the headstone, even after he’d been resurrected. Yes, resurrected. Cas had confirmed the identity part and spoken about Hell, but Cas has no further info on Dean. At least, that’s what he says, although the expression on his face changes to something unrecognisable every time he says it, almost like pain, but Dean knows that angels can’t feel pain. So Dean decides to believe him for now and question him later, when this seal shit is done with.  
  
The seals—that’s another thing. Cas says that Dean’s been chosen for something: to save the world. Dean, in the beginning, had thought he was going mental after everything he'd heard and saw, but then there’s a deep seated instinct in him that he never knew was there. The moment Dean had seen a demon, he’d known what it was and what had to be done to get rid of it. Castiel had said to him that it was a part of Dean’s life before—that he used to hunt supernatural creatures—and Dean has no choice but to believe him.  
  
Every morning, Dean wakes up with no memories of who he is. Every morning, Cas has two fingers on Dean’s forehead to bring the memories back but unfortunately, only the memories from a month ago. Dean finds that Cas’s two finger exercise are a way of bringing him home and binding him to reality, so after a few days of being weirded out, Dean starts to take comfort in this daily exercise. He still has no idea of what he did before. And pleased as he is that Cas goes through the trouble of helping return his memories every morning, there is a side-effect to everything: Dean remembers Hell.  
  
Well, no, not  _all_  of it, but he does remember some parts. He knows a demon called Alastair, Alastair’s scalpel, and the rack where Alastair would torture Dean day after day. The demon hisses, murmurs things that are vague—and they’re dreams. But in the end, Alastair always asks him a question:  _So, will it be today?_  
  
Dean has no idea what he means by that, and since it’s a dream, he can’t actually answer it either. But the dream does things to him. Sometimes he can feel his heart racing to states of panic. Sometimes he can’t sleep and he needs Cas and his finger-to-forehead trick to knock him unconscious. Sometimes there are unbidden tears in his eyes and all he can see in response to that, from Cas, is the sympathetic, downturned mouth and the sorry eyes.   
  
On the worst days, Castiel watches over Dean. It’s another strange thing that Dean eventually takes comfort from. After snapping at Cas to not watch him sleep at first, Dean thinks he appreciates the light hand on his wrist on the worst days, or Cas’s breaths on his face as he sits on the floor beside the bed, his chin on the mattress, watching Dean, and humming comfort that only half-reaches Dean in the middle of his disturbed sleep, but calms him all the same.  
  
Dean is just really glad, though, that he doesn’t remember everything about Hell.  
  
Cas and Dean now move from state-to-state, following Lilith—the demon who started it all, the one who’s breaking the seals. Cas tells Dean of the seals and the sightings, and Dean drives there. They have a home base now and that, too, is all thanks to Cas.   
  
It isn’t completely legal. Castiel just erased the memories of the original inhabitants of the house and now they’re at their other home in Pasadena, while Dean retains their place at Lawrence. He doesn’t feel guilty about it, though—even less so when Castiel tells him that this family is actually pretty wealthy and that Pasadena suits them better.  
  
“Are you sure?” Dean had asked him, admiring the leather-upholstered couch in the living room. He stepped back to have a good look, only to bump into Cas and feel his nerve endings jolt. He had turned around. “Personal space, dude!”  
  
“Sorry,” Cas had said innocently, blinking long lashes against incredibly blue eyes.  
  
Something about the sincerity of his expression made Dean side. “I believe you.”  
  
Lawrence is a nice place. Dean doesn’t know what it is about the town, but it feels like home. Again, Cas seems to have some info on this matter which he’s refusing to divulge, so Dean just decides not to ask him. Maybe he’ll figure this out one day. Or maybe he won’t, or maybe it’s best this way because it doesn’t matter. He’s grown to trust Cas, and Dean knows that Cas won’t actually do anything to hurt him.  
  
On some days, when all hell isn’t breaking loose somewhere, Dean will pull out a couple of beers and ask Cas to join him while watching TV. And they’ll sit on the couch and watch  _Dr Sexy_ , a show Dean’s really grown to like, shoulders bumping, and Cas will talk about how much beer tastes to him like molecules, and Dean will laugh at him, wondering who sent this weirdo to him.  
  
God did.  
  
Cas is a great friend, though. He’s always sincere, mostly honest, and he cares about Dean.  
  
There’s another thing, an emptiness that Dean can’t quite place. It’s in him all the time; in his chest, in his heart, floating just beneath the surface, and he can feel it there, heavy and uncomfortable, like an obstacle. Sometimes it feels like Dean is missing a limb. Sometimes it hurts. He wonders what it is about his life that is so incomplete, because he’s okay with how he’s living right now, and Cas kinda completes it all. The hunting seems to have been in his blood—it flows through his veins with a vengeance he never knew he had. Cas confirms that the hunting is indeed in Dean’s blood, although again, Cas admits to not knowing much regarding this matter, although he does have the not-pained expression again.   
  
Dean doesn’t push further. He doesn’t tell Cas about the emptiness either. He wishes that there was something to fill the hole, wishes he knew what he was missing, and that he could have it back. He wishes for his old life again, that alien life where he could remember everything, and where he had something that had apparently mattered to him so much, that it’s carried forward, past all this memory-loss crap.   
  
Dean wants that part of him back.  
  
He wonders if it’s the lack of companionship that’s making him lonely sometimes. He tries not to make too much out of the jolt of electricity that tingles his nerve endings when Cas touches him, when his fingers brush Dean’s forehead. He tries not to think of the angel’s blue eyes, clear and earnest, eyes that watch Dean, full of an emotion he can’t recognise. He tries to forget about the goosebumps that rise on his skin when Cas touches him sometimes, and Cas’s eyelashes or his jawline, or that determined look that the angel gets in his eyes before they’re going to set out on a mission. He tries not to make too much of Castiel’s smile, wide and genuine, and the crinkles on the corners of his eyes, making lines on his temples.   
  
Dean doesn’t know what Cas feels, and he doesn’t want to really think of it too much. He only makes an effort to control an obvious reaction to his stomach swooping when Castiel suddenly appears, landing just inches away from him, their breaths matching while they hunt together, Cas’s gravelly voice apologising as he moves away. Dean tries and tries hard to make sure Castiel doesn’t know about this, and wonders if maybe… a different relationship with Cas will fill that hole. He wonders if he does bat for that team at all.  
  
Mostly, Dean just wants that hole to disappear, and whether it’s because of Cas or someone else, he wants to figure it out for himself.  
  
And when he sleeps, one night, with that wish burning in his heart like the glowing embers of a fire, he dreams. He dreams a dream that never goes away; a dream that he never forgets.  
  
That’s when Dean gets re-introduced to  _that_  part of him. The part of him that had been missing all along.  
  
0  
  
Dean finds himself walking down a vaguely familiar path. The wind is whistling in his ears and he shivers against it, feeling bare feet crunch dry leaves as he steps over them, cool concrete tingling his soles. He thinks he knows where he is, but he isn’t sure. He can’t be sure. There is laughter in his ears. Laughter that seems like it’s from a long, long time ago—far, far away—and it warms Dean’s heart as he moves on.   
  
A voice suddenly speaks up, right by his ear:  _You seem to have found Muninn._  
  
Dean’s shoulder feels heavy, a prickling sensation against his flesh, and he squints sideways to see a huge raven perched on him. It’s dark, majestic, its wings folded neatly and gleaming a beautiful jet black in the moonlight. Dean somehow knows not to shoo the bird away.  
  
In that moment, he looks ahead again, only to spot a children’s park.  
  
A low wall runs around the playground, overlooking the rotating merry-go-round and the swings that creak as they go back and forth. But that’s not what Dean’s looking at. He’s concentrating on something else—a  _man_ , sitting on the low wall with his back to Dean.   
  
He is well built, with longish hair that curls around his neck in thick, brown strands. He is slumped forward a little, as though he’s tired or thinking about something, and Dean stops for a moment before speaking out his name … the one name that’s been in Dean’s heart, the one person who is in Dean’s life but has been missing for so, so long.  
  
_Sammy._  
  
Sam turns around, his sideburns longer and more sculpted, his face looking older but eyes still the same as before. They widen, and then he smiles. He smiles an all-Sam smile, the same joy reaching his eyes like the innocence of a child, dimples appearing long and deep in either cheek.   
  
_Dean._  
  
In another world, there are two fingers on a forehead, and Dean finally remembers a dream other than Hell. He looks at Castiel, who is standing there in his trench coat and his tie, and Dean feels his heart grow heavy. His chest constricts with longing and happiness and sadness, and he blinks at his angel friend, trying to process it all as the words escape is lips. “Cas, who is Sam? Where is he?”  
  
For the first time since he’s met Cas, Dean finds that the angel is dumbfounded.  
  
Miles away from here, Sam sits up abruptly on his lumpy bed. There’s sweat rolling down his face and his heart is going fast, but for the first time in a long while, it’s not a bad thing that’s got him going like this. It’s not one of those terrible visions of Dean dying. Sam feels goosebumps all over as he thinks of the implications of what he just saw. He knew it. He _knew_  it.   
  
He smiles at the annoying rain, and he smiles at his phone as he picks it up and gets to his contacts. Ruby doesn’t pick up his call, but Sam barely holds his smile through the voicemail that he leaves her.  
  
“Ruby, Dean is alive.”   
                              
There is new hope when he puts the phone away, its gold branches wrapping themselves around the darkness in Sam. As he gets to his laptop, he vows to himself, Dean, and everyone out there, that he will find his brother.   
  
Sam has been away from his family, from Dean, for too long. There is nothing that will go wrong this time. Sam swears it on everything he has and everything he wants. This time, he won’t go wrong again.


	8. Chapter 8

 

  


 

  
  
“It was him.”  
  
“Sam—”  
  
“ _It was him_ , Ruby.”  
  
“I know what you saw, Sam. You told me a million times,” Ruby snaps, tossing back her dark hair as Sam glares at her. She ignores his expression and wraps her arms around her small frame. “I hate to break it you, but that wasn’t real.”  
  
“It was, and it felt real,” Sam insists. “There was a raven on…” He stops. Ruby won’t get it and Sam doesn’t want to tell her.  
  
“You have a  _really_ weird subconscious, then,” she suggests, reacting just the way he’d expected.  
  
“There was a fucking raven on his shoulder,” Sam repeats. “You listening to me?”  
  
Ruby rolls her eyes. “Again with those ravens. What have I told you, Sam? What did I say they were?”   
  
“Right, Lilith’s eyes and ears?” Sam chides.  
  
“Exactly.”  
  
“And,” he’s almost laughing, “let me get this straight—Lilith uses bits of well-known mythology to creatively spy on me.”  
  
Ruby clenches her jaw. “Is that so hard to believe, now?”  
  
“Isn’t it? She’s a fucking  _demon_.”  
  
“And I don’t know why that invalidates everything else for you, Sam. She has existed since the times of Odin. She has been there since your  _God._ And _Satan_. It’s not really a trip to the mythology section of Harvard for her because she was there for this. She knows this shit, and she’s using someone else’s technique. And you ...” she pauses, narrowing her eyes, “you, on the other hand, Sam, are following a fucking figment of your imagination.”  
  
“It’s not like that.”   
  
“Then what it is like?”  
  
“It’s—” Sam swallows. He casts his eyes on Ruby, who is defiant, arms crossed, and he sighs, shoulders slumping. “What would you understand? You’re a fucking demon.”  
  
Ruby is quiet for a moment. “I used to be human.”  
  
“Yeah,” Sam spits at her. “Sure seems like it.”  
  
She raises smouldering, dark eyes to him. She’s half his height, but she knows how to make herself seem taller than Sam. Sam takes a sharp breath as he collects himself and straightens. “Just so you know,” he says, “this wasn’t… normal. This was different.”  
  
“How?”  
  
“I can’t explain.”  
  
Ruby blows out a breath. “What do you want me to do?”  
  
“Can you do  _anything_ useful for once?”  
  
Ruby rolls his eyes at him. “That’s nice, Sam. Real nice. I tell you everything I know, do everything I can, and this is what I get.”  
  
He scoffs at her. “And you’re  _offended_?” Sam gets up and seats himself on the couch, feeling the rough, embroidered upholstery tickle his skin as he moves his hands over it. The roughness helps him when he’s anxious, he’s discovered, in the days that he’s been living in this abandoned house. It’s got something to do with grounding him to reality, reminding him where he is, and it helps.  
  
Ruby lets out a sigh, walks over, and plants herself on the armrest. “Sam, listen to me. It was a dream, okay?”  
  
“It wasn’t. You  _know_  it wasn’t.”  
  
“You  _want_  it to be a vision,” she says to him. “I know you want it to be real—”  
  
“It is real.”  
  
“Sam, no,  _listen_ ,” Ruby says, grabbing his shoulders and twisting him about to face her. “You can’t get distracted. Don’t let this fuck you up. Lilith needs to be taken down, and—”  
  
“Shut up,” Sam snarls.  
  
“Listen to me.”  
  
“I have been. All this fucking time.” Tendrils of anger flood into Sam and he can feel his senses tingle with it as he looks into Ruby’s eyes, narrowing his own to let her know that he isn’t taking orders. She seems to get the memo as she backs away for a moment, her hair rippling in the slight breeze from the broken window. Sam winds his arms around himself as he looks at his knees.   
  
There is silence, thick and icy, and Sam almost shudders underneath it. And then there is a hand on the back of his neck.  
  
“Sam,” Ruby whispers, her voice brimming with sympathy.  
  
Sam bats her hand away. He hates it when she tries to act like Dean—he hates it when any of her gestures resemble anything that Dean did. Dean was Sam’s brother, his  _family,_  and Ruby is far from it. And, yes, Sam might be fucking Ruby, but she means nothing to him.  
  
He grits his teeth at her. “Stop this.”  
  
She stops touching him, stands up, and comes over to crouch before him, and their eyes meet again. “I know what you’re talking about, okay? I know that you’re hopeful. It might be hard to believe—for you—but I really was human once.”  
  
He breaks his gaze and traces the embroidering on the upholstery, with his eyes. “You want me to give you a medal for that?” he mutters.  
  
“No.” Her soft hand is on his cheek, turning his face to her. “But you have to know. Even if this is all real, the only way to Dean is through your powers. This doesn’t change anything. And the raven? It just means that Lilith is spying on you, no matter what.”  
  
He sighs. “I don’t want to take that road.”  
  
“You know what you need to do—”  
  
“No.” He pushes her away and makes to get up, but she grips his wrist.  
  
“Sam, listen to me.”  
  
“Stop touching me.”  
  
Her grip tightens. “Really? Because you don’t seem to mind me touching you when you’re pushing me against a wall to fuck me,” she snarls. “Or when you want your dick in my mouth, or—”  
  
“Go away.” His free hand is on hers, trying to pry away traitorously tender, long fingers, and he can feel her nails digging in as he curses. “ _Fuck_! Stop that!”  
  
“I need you to—”  
  
“No!”  
  
“Sam, just one time!” Ruby pulls him so he’s turning around again, and her gaze is desperate when it matches his. “Just this once!”  
  
“Dammit, Ruby,” Sam spits at her, listening to the window creak on its hinges behind them. “Do you even know what you’re talking about?! I don’t think I get to come back from this!”  
  
“But if what you’re saying is right, you get Dean back! You get Lilith’s head on a plate!” Ruby justifies, her voice high and almost screeching. Her chest is heaving up and down as she raises beseeching eyes to his, and her hand goes to fidget with her hair. Her mouth parts, and then shuts, and she shakes her head. “Forget it, I—”  
  
“How do I get Dean back?” Sam interrupts, feeling the need to disapprove of her idea, even though intrigue hits him like a bullet train.   
  
“You…” she bites her lips and takes a step forward. “If Dean’s  _really_  back, then killing Lilith will help you find him. Because if what you saw is true and if there were ravens involved, then I’m very sure she’s kept him somewhere. Captive.”  
  
“Captive?”  
  
“The sooner you bust her open, the better it is for Dean,” Ruby tells Sam desperately. “And there is just one sure-shot way, and I know you don’t like it. But you know what this includes, and what it can do to demons, and  _I’m a freaking demon_ , Sam. You think I like this any more than you do? You think, if I weren’t telling you the truth, and I weren’t entirely on your side and thought it would help, I’d even hand you such a weapon?”  
  
He blinks at her and slumps, letting her impose again. She’s right. Sam knows she’s right, but this is all so,  _so wrong_ , and what would Dean say if he found out?  
  
“Sam.” Ruby’s voice is softer, slightly breathy, as she closes the gap between them. “I know you think this is wrong. And maybe it is. But one time won’t hurt, right?” Her hand is on Sam’s cheek again, fingers slender and velvety as they brush against the stubble there. Ruby bends closer, soft rushes of breath ghosting over Sam’s ear.   
  
“Besides, you don’t know the whole extent of your powers. If you think what you’re seeing means anything you might be able to re-establish contact with Dean.” She licks at his ear lobe. “Think about it.”  
  
He turns, sweeping his lips against hers and she catches his face between her hands as she kisses him. She is soft and pliant while he cups her neck, gripping at her hair and tugging her closer, feeling a burst of electricity tingle his nerves as he deepens their kiss.   
  
Ruby tilts her head, running her hands through Sam’s hair, and kissing him deeper. She tantalises the borders of his lips with her tongue, each stroke soft and light and wet, making Sam gasp short and quiet. He pulls her closer and shuts his eyes to receive her completely.  
  
Her hand moves down from the sides of his face to the sides of his neck, and then his shoulders, and she’s pushing Sam down, slowly, gently, so he’s leaning against the back of the couch. His hands reach down to the small of her back, and up inside her shirt. He’s touching bare skin, feeling the softness of it, rubbing his thumb over it and revelling in it, as Ruby licks his lip again. He lets his tongue catch hers, feeling it graze at his, and glides his hands over the knobs of her spine so that she’s bucking slightly, her body quivering in pleasure. He brushes her tongue again as he gets his hands further up her back, fingers reaching the bra hooks and popping them open, one after the other. When the bra loosens, he slides his hands up front and cups her breasts.   
  
She gasps when he touches her nipples, moving his thumbs in circles, sending her shuddering once again, and she’s suddenly taking her hands off him, stripping off her shirt. Sam fumbles with his own t-shirt until Ruby’s fingers close over his, at the hem, and help him peel it up and away.  
  
They kiss again. Ruby’s hands go to Sam’s jeans and into his boxers. He grips her waist and pulls her closer. She finds his half-hard dick, her finger on the hood, the slit, and a short burst of electricity fritzes all through Sam, his breath catching in his throat, while her fingers rub him again and again.  
  
The jeans and boxers are shoved farther down, and Sam’s feels himself hardening with each moment as her tongue lashes against his. Her finger slides down his frenulum, and he gasps once more, while his cock perks up to its fullest.  
  
He’s trembling all over, groaning, and his hands grasp her tighter, pulling at her thighs so they’re tight around his waist, and fumbling with her panties until he’s ripping them off. He slides a hand down her pubic mound and lower still, fingers tracing a path until he finds her clit. He strokes.  
  
He does it again, in quick, short flicks, and she urgently brings down his boxers all the way, going over to his shoulder to bury her forehead there as she lets him into her. He can already feel her shaking, and he grips her back as he thrusts once.  
  
She sighs, and takes in a sharp breath.  
  
She’s sliding her forehead over his neck, her long hair tickling him, and his mouth drops open, half-formed grunts escaping him as she moves her hips.   
  
“Fuck,” he gasps into her mouth as he comes, bucking against her again. She gasps, thighs pressing down on his waist and releasing it rhythmically. Sweat rolls down her forehead and her breaths are heavy as her body trembles in his arms.   
  
He’s breathing fast, sweating, and he’s warm and cold and his heart wants to escape his chest. He feels Ruby finish with an almighty shudder, arching against him, her muscles taut just as he thrusts once more. She’s taking long gasps of breath now, and he starts to detach himself from her but before they’re fully separated, she’s clutching at his wrist.  
  
Sam looks at Ruby questioningly, frowning when she reaches for the knife that’s lying on the table. She’s still panting when she nods at him, and raises her forearm to the blade. At the first nick, blood oozes out, thick and red. Ruby cups Sam’s face with her good hand as she gestures to the wound. “You ready?”  
  
Sam hesitates, still tasting her before nodding. He wishes he could get back into his clothes because the nakedness is making him vulnerable. His boxers are still around his ankles and he kicks them off, looking once at Ruby and bending to the wound.  
  
“Only one time,” Ruby whispers, moving to stroke his head.  
  
Sam nods, letting himself believe her for once. She’s proven herself believable all this time, and maybe this won’t be a bad thing. Especially if this can bring Dean back. This can’t be a bad thing, can it?   
  
He braces himself, before placing his lips to the dripping stream of blood. He realises, too late, that he has reached a point from which he can't turn back.

 

  
“So Sam is my brother.”  
  
Dean is running a hand through the spikes of his hair, his heart hammering as he processes Castiel’s story. He feels like he’s thinking of another world, the one from his dreams where he was so happy, so happy to see that young man. Sam. Dean had felt a sense of pride and longing, with alarms trilling all over to grab hold of Sam and not let go. But in his wakefulness, Dean doesn't even recognise the man, even though his name and the memory of his face seem to set something off in the pit of his stomach.  
  
Castiel looks guilty. Of course, he should be guilty for hiding such a thing from Dean, such a huge fact. But Dean can’t find it in him right now to yell or punch his friend, because he is too enveloped in shock—too busy thinking about that guy. About the dimples and the floppy hair and the wide eyes, and…  
  
“Sam.”  
  
Dean allows himself to say it another time. Allows his heart to relax, to feel the happiness spread in him like a drug, and he smiles, but just briefly. He sold his soul for that kid, Castiel says, which is why Dean was in Hell. And it just goes on to prove that Sam is important to him. Very, very important to him.  
  
He wants to go find Sam, to know him again. Wants to do whatever brotherly shit they’d do together, because obviously, it seems to have been awesome.  _Sam_  seems to have been awesome.  
  
Of course he is. He’s Dean’s little brother, after all.   
  
“His memories make you happy,” Castiel says in a low voice, drawing a conclusion from Dean’s smile.   
  
Dean snaps his head up and looks into Castiel’s incredibly blue eyes. “Why did you lie, Cas?” He can feel sadness again, but a different kind this time. He had trusted Castiel. Despite Cas’s cagey behaviour, Dean had never imagined he’d be betrayed like this. He’d just thought that Cas truly didn’t know about Dean’s actual life.  
  
“I…” Castiel hesitates, his stark, confident demeanour gone. “I had orders.”  
  
“From your dick superiors?”  
  
“I have been listening to them all this time, Dean. They’ve never meant any harm.”  
  
“I can see that,” Dean scoffs. “I can see how awesome they are.”  
  
“You have to believe me.”  
  
“I did.”  
  
There’s silence. Castiel’s eyes turn sad as he holds Dean’s gaze earnestly. “What do you want to do?”  
  
“What do you think?” Dean asks him.  
  
“You want to find your brother?”  
  
“No, Cas, I want to take a long walk in the beach.”  
  
“I can find you a beach near—”  
  
Dean jumps up from his place, no longer finding Castiel’s straightforwardness funny. The dude lied to him. All this time. Dean doesn’t know what to make of it; doesn’t know if he even wants to forgive Cas for it. But for now, he needs Castiel. He can’t last a day without him, because Dean knows that the moment he decides to rest his eyes, all his memories will be gone.   
  
He turns around, watching a ray of light fall from the window, illuminating half of Cas’s face. “Will you help me find Sam?”  
  
“Dean, I—”  
  
“Forget it.” Bitterness fills Dean, and he knows that Cas won’t help him here. He thinks of the past month, of how his thoughts towards Cas have changed, and then realises that Cas will never, ever feel the same. Hell, Cas doesn’t feel. He’s a sheep in a flock.   
  
If Castiel’s stupid superiors or whoever were against the idea of him even  _telling_  Dean about Sam, they’re not going to allow him to help search for Sam. Cas won’t come without a signed note from those assholes.  
  
So the angels can go screw themselves.  
  
Dean takes a deep breath. “Why are you here today, Cas?” he asks. “We got new seals to stop from popping? Because that isn’t happening as efficiently as your God Squad would have hoped.” His heart is breaking and his throat is constricting and he wishes Cas hadn’t lied, because he doesn’t want to see Cas’s face right now. Even though…  _fuck_.  
  
“It’s not about seals,” Castiel says. He licks at his chapped lips. “There are angels being murdered out there and we don’t know why.”  
  
“And should I care about that? After what you guys have done to me?”  
  
“No… I…” Cas looks unsure, and Dean crosses his arms.  
  
“What’s your excuse for this? Am I supposed to help you and your brothers after all the wonderful ways in which you have helped me?”  
  
“Your help is necessary, and it would be very forgiving of you if you just came along.”  
  
“So you want me to forgive everyone after  _all this_.”  
  
Cas hesitates. “We have Alastair held captive.”  
  
“So?”  
  
“We need to extract information from him.”  
  
“Forget it,” Dean snaps. “You assholes lied to me, and now you suddenly need my torturing services?”  
  
“That’s not—”  
  
“You have no fucking clue what Hell was like!” Dean rails at him, clenching his fists. “I relive those dreams every other night, and you have no idea—”  
  
“Dean—”  
  
“You lie to me for a month,” Dean says, gritting his teeth, leaving out the  _I trusted you so fucking much it hurts_ , “and when I find out, you have the fucking balls to ask me to serve you more?  _To become Heaven’s bitch anyway_?!” He is yelling now, tiny beads of spittle flying out of his mouth, but he doesn’t care.  
  
“ _Dean_ ,” Castiel pleads. “There might be a solution in all this. There might—”  
  
“Don’t you fucking lie to me again!” Dean growls. His head feels hot, brain cells short-circuiting in bursts of electricity. He doesn’t think he’d feel this way had he not felt what he feels for Cas, and he regrets all the beers and the  _Dr Sexy_  and letting Cas watch over him. “You are all sanctimonious fuckers. You, your friend Uriel— _everyone_.”  
  
“I didn’t want to hurt you,” Castiel tells him finally, voice no longer hard or gravelly. “The angels don’t know where your brother is, Dean. We looked for him. I promise we did, because he has an equal part in this … in what we’re doing. But we can’t find him.”  
  
Dean, who is in every mood to yell at Cas again, suddenly feels himself deflate. “Say what?”  
  
“The demons, especially Azazel, have been planning this for a long time,” Castiel explains. “To let Lucifer out, sixty-six seals need to be broken, as you know.”  
  
“Yeah, I do.”  
  
“The first seal was broken by you.”  
  
Dean’s jaw drops , disbelief flooding him, as he looks into the angel’s eyes for a lie—for anything that can tell him that this isn’t real. Dean broke the first seal? No. This is not possible. This isn’t true. He couldn’t have, could he?  
  
Castiel continues, unperturbed by Dean’s thought process. “You were the righteous man they needed. You and your father are the only people Alastair ever made the deal with, in Hell. He doesn’t usually grant any kind of reprieve to the souls there. And the first seal is broken when a righteous man sheds blood in Hell.   
  
“And it is written that the first seal shall be broken,” he recites, “when a righteous man sheds blood in Hell. As he breaks, so shall it break.”  
  
“I – I…” Dean begins, and pauses, because he knows what happened in Hell. He broke and he accepted Alastair’s scalpel. He tortured other souls. And even though he can’t remember it all, he knows he did it. But this was the first seal?  _He_  was the first seal?    
  
He looks up at Castiel. “So this is all because of me?” He feels guilty. Fuck. How could he have taken that deal?   
  
“It’s not your fault,” Castiel says. “You couldn’t have known. But the demons were counting on your devotion to your brother for this, and they got you where they needed. However, they were also counting on Sam’s devotion to you.”  
  
Dean frowns. “They wanted him to sell his soul too?”  
  
“No. Other things.”  
  
“What other things?”  
  
“I cannot tell you.”  
  
“Cas—”  
  
Castiel sighs. “It doesn’t matter, Dean. My superiors and I were suspecting the demons are hiding him somewhere, but there’s no reason to hide him from you any longer if they were, and we don’t know where he is right now.”  
  
“So you just decided to leave out that piece of information when you introduced yourself to me?” Dean is starting to feel angry all over again.  
  
“You and Sam seem to have been cursed, right before you went to Hell,” Castiel says. “The other angels wanted me to tell you that we suspect Sam might be… dead,” Dean’s heart jolts at that, while Cas continues. “But you had no memories of him anyway, and I didn’t want to bother you.”  
  
Dean raises an eyebrow. “And who are  _you_  to decide that for me, huh? To sort out the information that might and might not bother me? Who gave you the right?”  
  
Castiel doesn’t reply, and Dean pushes at Castiel’s shoulder. “Tell me, Cas. Answer me. You decided you had control over my life? Just ‘cause you rescued me from Hell? Just ‘cause of  _this_?” He raises the sleeve of his t-shirt to reveal Castiel’s handprint on his upper arm, red and raised and prominent in the morning sun.  
  
“No.” Castiel’s eyes are beseeching, piercing blue irises almost gentle. “I am not accustomed to having any human emotions. I didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t out of selfish need.”  
  
“I don’t believe you,” Dean scoffs.  
  
“You don’t have to.” Castiel takes a deep breath. “I apologise, Dean.”  
  
“No, Cas, you gotta give me a reason for this. I want a fucking reason. Because I won’t have you lying to me and hiding things from me anymore. So tell me the truth, because ‘I didn’t wanna hurt you’ doesn’t cut it.”  
  
“Dean—”  
  
“ _Reason_ , Cas!” Dean snaps at him.  
  
“I ... my superiors—”  
  
“You  _spineless, soulless_  son of a bitch,” Dean snarls. “You can’t do  _anything_  without consent from your fucking superiors can you? You can’t be human. I should have never thought… never expected…”  
  
“Dean…”  
  
“Fuck off.”  
  
“There is a reason. There is a reason. I—”  
  
_“What?”_  
  
Before Dean knows it, Castiel is moving over to him. The gap between them closes, and Dean just briefly feels Castiel’s hands on his face before the angel tugs him forward to lock their lips in a kiss.  
  
Dean takes a sharp breath, batting his eyelids against Castiel’s cheek and feeling the awkward lips on his. His own mouth is limp because he can’t reciprocate; doesn’t know if he should reciprocate, even though, he thinks he’s wanted this a while. Nut… not now. Not after Cas fucking broke Dean’s heart.   
  
He grasps Castiel’s shoulders to push him away, stumbling back and blinking.  
  
Castiel is dumbfounded for a moment. “Sorry,” he says finally, his eyes refusing to meet Dean's as he backs into the couch. The edge hits Castiel’s knees and for a moment, he’s just trying to keep his balance intact.   
  
Dean watches Castiel struggle. He doesn’t know whether to laugh or yell, or why he’s feeling so weirdly good about knowing what Cas feels, but he gathers himself and takes a step forward. “What was that?”  
  
“I—”  
  
“What the  _fuck_ , Cas?”  
  
Castiel swallows _; so human_ , and shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”  
  
Dean watches Castiel, and drinks him in. Really drinks him in. He thinks of the eyes, the lips, and how he’s been looking too. He wanted this and Cas obviously wanted this so does this mean…? Does this—?   
  
He can’t take it anymore.  
  
Dean curls his fist. “You need to leave.”  
  
“I am sorry if I—”  
  
“ _Leave_.”  
  
Castiel doesn’t try to talk again; doesn’t ask for another explanation. His shoulders slump visibly, and Dean feels something inside him, something that says this is just wrong (and he knows, but Cas betrayed him). He watches Castiel walk out the door, watches his retreating back, and slams the door shut before he can rethink this. Then he leans his back against the wood and slides down to the floor, head held in his hands.

 

 

 

  
  
“That’s it.”  
  
Sam swipes the dribble of blood off his chin and sits up facing Ruby, who is in her underwear, and ecstatic in a unholy way. Her grin widens when she watches him. “So,” she says, “how does it feel?”  
  
“Same as the first two times,” Sam replies, his voice coming out in a low rumble. His stomach is sloshing at the blood in it, his mouth tasting coppery and salty and just  _terrible._ Sam had puked the blood back up the other times, mostly out of pure disgust.  
  
“You’ll get used to it.”  
  
“I just want to get my brother back,” Sam snaps at her. “I don’t intend to get used to this crap. You get me?”  
  
She nods, reaching out to stroke Sam’s hair. “I get you, Sam. You won’t have to toe the line, really, if it means all that much to you, and I already told you.”  
  
“Let’s keep it that way.”  
  
“ _If_  you stop puking up the blood,” she says, shrugging lightly.   
  
“You fed it to me three times, and this is just the first day,” Sam growls.  
  
“I did, Sam, but it’s barely in you. And if you want to find Dean, you need to man up with that stomach of yours, so we can make it work in just single doses.”  
  
“And how do I do that?”  
  
“Control your gag reflex,” she says. “And I need you to be sober too. No hangover-induced blood-wasting on my watch. I won’t like it, Sam.”  
  
Sam grits his teeth. “Fine.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
They sit there for a moment, on the couch, and Sam swallows down rising bile as he reaches for the knife in Ruby’s hand. “Give me another hit. The sooner I get used to this, the better.”  
  
He barely registers the return of her ecstatic smile when he presses the blade against her skin, and bends down to drink the blood that’s blossoming over.

 

  
  
Dean knows Cas is still around. Because even days after Cas has left, he knows he’s  _Dean_ and his memories are intact when he wakes up from his sleep. The first morning, he’d thought the fingers on his forehead were an illusion, but when he actually remembered after that, he realised that they weren’t.  
  
He putters about the house on his own, waiting for someone to tell him about more seals while he tries to trace Sam’s whereabouts. Unfortunately, Sam’s cell phones are with Dean and any evidence that could be used for him is with Dean.  
  
He tries calling some hunters he’s met during this brief period of hunting that he can actually remember, but no one has even seen Sam. Dean also looks for spells that would hide Sam from him, and then the counter-spells. He looks and looks, until he’s slumped into the sofa every night with a glass of whiskey in his hand.  
  
He wonders if he should have let go of Cas. Wonders if the hole in his chest right now has widened because of Cas, or if it’s just that he misses Sam more (he knows it’s Cas too but he chooses to ignore that). But, on the more drunken nights, Dean can’t deny to himself that he does want Cas back.  
  
The dude was stupid, but he was sincere. Hell, he gave Dean a fucking answer to every goddamned question, even if the last ever answer he’d given was a kiss. A  _kiss_. Seriously. Because Cas didn’t know how to say what he was feeling?   
  
Or was it because he knew Dean kinda felt the same way?  
  
He remembers blue eyes; so fucking blue, that the word  _blue_  isn’t even enough for them, and that’s just too many blues in a fucking sentence, even if it’s just a thought. And Cas’s lips. On some days, they’d look so chapped, Dean would want to offer to buy him some Vaseline, but when they’d kissed… Cas seemed to have reasonably soft lips, so maybe they just had those ridges like that? And those fucking stupid eye crinkles when he smiles, though he hadn’t started smiling a lot until recently…  
  
Cas.  
  
Cas was there. Okay, he did shitty things and he lied, but that was because he cared. He cared back, like Dean had cared all this time. And maybe having his feelings reciprocated shouldn’t have caused such a storm in Dean but it has.  
  
Dean wants Cas back.  
  
He huffs and wipes a hand down his face. “Cas. You can show yourself now.”  
  
He knows Cas has heard him, and might take a while to show up so he moves, pulling back a chair at a table and sits down on it as he waits. In a few minutes, someone materialises  _right_  behind him, the presence causing Dean to tingle all over, and he flinches to turn back at Cas.   
  
“Dude! I’ve  _told_  you. Personal space!”  
  
“Sorry.” Castiel takes back two steps, eyes on the floor but not at Dean, and Dean can feel his own throat clog with nervousness.  
  
“Cas… don’t do that again.”  _You hurt me._  
  
“I understand, Dean. I just…” this time, Cas manages to meet eyes with Dean. “You had asked me a question.”  
  
“And you thought—you thought  _that_  was the answer?”  
  
“I wanted you to know how I feel for—”  
  
“Stop.”  _I feel the same._ Dean looks away. “I want to find Sam,” he says, scratching at his stubble. “You get that, right?”  
  
“I understand.”  
  
“And I will work on the seals and everything, but my priorities will change.”  
  
“I get it, Dean,” Cas says sincerely.  
  
“So if you wanna ditch me now…”  
  
“I don’t want to do that.” Castiel’s Adam’s apple bobs as he takes just a step forward. “The two of us have a mission together.”  
  
“Not really. Yours is different.”  
  
“I was put here to guard you,” Cas replies, “to help you.”  
  
“Not to find my brother, dude. That’s what I’m saying. So if you wanna book, seriously—”  
  
“It’s my mistake that you’re finding out about Sam like this,” Castiel says. “I should have told you. I will right my wrong now. I understand I’ve upset you, but that won’t happen.”  
  
“Thought your service isn’t to me?”  
  
“My duty is to right my wrongs.”  
  
“So you’re gonna help me even if I shoo you away right now, is that it?”   
  
“I will not impose myself on you, Dean.” Castiel’s shoulders slump again, like before. “I’m sorry.”  
  
Dean blinks. “Can you get my memories back to me? The real ones?”  
  
“Not all of them, but I’ll try my best.”  
  
“Bring it on, then.” Dean hesitates. “And you know… keep the personal space intact.” He wants to kiss Cas again, but he doesn’t want to feel the hurt anymore, and Dean hopes that he will trust Cas at some point.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Dean flashes him a half-smile. “You never change, do you?”  
  
“I’m an angel,” Cas replies simply. “And angels don’t change.”  
  
“Good,” he says. “Don’t change, Cas.”  
  
0  
  
Seven sessions over a week of Castiel working on Dean’s memories allow him to remember a few things from his past. Castiel’s powers aren’t good enough to restore all of the memories, just the ones that he tried to form after he had developed the whole amnesia issue. They also can’t work too much in a day because the whole process gives Dean excruciating headaches, and he finds himself laid-up with damp washcloths on his forehead every day. In his sleep, he thinks he feels a hand gently touch his forehead, or someone stroke his hair while he feels the washcloth being changed, but he accepts the touch.   
  
As the memories start coming back, Dean is happy with what he gets. He remembers Brenda and Samantha and he is quite astonished and heartened at the recollections of them. He realises he had brought his Impala and his and Sam’s duffels to their house, and his heart fills with longing to get back to his things, and to the women to whom he owes so much.   
  
He doesn’t know how to go about introducing himself. What will they think? They were the ones to bury him, and seeing him alive like this is sure to freak them both out.   
  
Dean knows he’ll have to think of another way to ease them into this, but Castiel is insistent on not wasting time, and just finding them.  
  
“We should leave now, Dean,” he says, when he’s made sure that Dean doesn’t have a headache anymore.  
  
“Yeah, Cas, but they’re civilians.”  
  
“They will understand. I watched them while you were with them, and after, when you went to Hell. They’re fond of you.”  
  
“Wait, wha—”  
  
“We don’t have time.”  
  
“Can we take a breather here, Cas?”  
  
Castiel glances into Dean’s eyes, nods, and seats himself on the sofa. Dean goes and takes the armchair, leaning forward. “Are you really sure they’ll be fine with this? I mean—I remember them now, but I don’t know how they’ll react and I don’t need the cops on our ass.”   
  
Castiel shifts closer to Dean, their knees bumping awkwardly, and Dean brings his own legs back. “They were good people, Dean. Better company than I am. I believe being with them will do you good.”  
  
Dean blinks once, twice, an emotion rushing inside him—all the suppressed feelings bubbling in his gut. “Hey, Cas.”  
  
The last seven days have been different from the whole last month. Dean doesn’t know if it’s because of what Castiel admitted, or if it’s something else, but Cas’s every touch seems to have been teasing, tantalising, more so than before, even if Dean is almost positive that Cas hasn’t been doing it on purpose.  
  
“I will visit,” Castiel tells him. “You can stay nearby and call when you get a lead on Sam, and I’ll come.” He takes a small breath. “I’m sorry about that day, Dean.”  
  
The innocent touches are coming back to Dean, fingers on his forehead, hands brushing with Cas’s, their knees touching, the way Cas’s eyes bore into Dean’s sincere and innocent when he talks, Cas’s hands stroking his hair while Dean rode out those terrible headaches…  
  
“Dean?”  
  
Dean looks right at Cas as he kneels, sliding down from the armchair. Cas is already too close, and Dean drinks him in for a second. He doesn’t know what this is. Why does he feel this way for Cas at all? Is it because he’s been alone all this time? Because he’s not had time for sex, for one-night stands? Cas tells him he’s had a lot of those before—before the parts that his memories now extend to. Those forgotten days, when Dean enjoyed it all.  
  
Is he that desperate?  
  
Dean feels that pull towards Cas now more than ever. Cas—such a mystery, but so open to Dean, each layer unravelled, and so simple, yet so complicated.  
  
Man, he’s really, really wanted to kiss Cas for a while now, and he was an asshole (for the right reasons) when Cas finally took the correct steps. He wants to kiss Cas again.  
  
Castiel is confused when Dean grips at his tie and pulls him forward, and even more so when their lips meet.  
  
This time, when Dean kisses Castiel, fully prepared for it, and wanting it all the same, he feels one of the puzzle pieces fall into place, as the million questions in his head are answered all at once.  
  
This is so  _right_.  
  
He pulls away, tasting Cas on his lips, watching the angel’s half-mast eyes and listening to his soft gasps. Dean feels warmth rise up his cheeks as he smiles.   
  
“Let’s go talk to Brenda and Sam.”  
  
0  
  
When he rings the doorbell at Brenda’s house, Dean’s heart is going a mile a minute, reminding him that he probably won’t be received well. However, he’s ready to do anything to get Sam back, and his first lead is right here. What he couldn’t possibly be prepared for—and hadn’t quite anticipated, though—is the piercing shriek that Brenda lets out when she lays eyes on him at the doorway.  
  
Dean just smiles at her, through her screaming. “Hey, Brenda,” he says softly, when she’s done and is staring at him like he’s mental. “I need your help in finding my brother Sam.”  


 

**0000000000000000000000**


	9. Chapter 9

 

  
**Book Three**

  
  
**_One Month Later_**  
  
**_November, 2008_**  
  
Dean lets Cas’s lips hold his own, sinking into the kiss and shutting his eyes as Cas pulls him forward, wrapping his arms around the small of Dean’s back in a warm embrace. He doesn’t open his mouth to Cas’s tongue, though, and he can feel Cas slump against him as he weakly tries to hold the kiss, but instead, has to pull away. He looks down, at the floor, one hand going up to grip Cas’s tie.  
  
“Dean.”  
  
Dean brushes his forehead against Castiel’s shoulder and doesn’t reply. Cas rubs his back a little. “We’ll follow that new lead on Sam today. I am quite confident about it, if you ask me.”  
  
Cas is a good liar, Dean remembers, but he sighs. “I’m tired.”  
  
“I know.” Cas’s voice is comforting as he holds Dean closer, his breath ghosting against the side of Dean’s neck. Dean can feel a tingle run down his spine as little goosebumps start to rise on his skin.  
  
“Cas,” he says, his voice barely a whisper, “am I failing Sam?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“It’s been a month since we started looking.”  
  
“And Sam is hidden, Dean,” Castiel says, pulling away a little so he can look into Dean’s eyes. The blue in his irises sparkles just a bit; the sky on a clear day, and Dean blinks, as Cas continues. “I don’t doubt that whoever is hiding him is very against him being found at all.”  
  
Dean waits a moment before finally nodding, and Castiel’s arms are still around him when there’s a knock at their door. Dean breaks away gently. “Come in.”  
  
The door opens slightly and Brenda peeks in. “We’re doing dinner in an hour,” she says. Ever since she and Samantha got over the shock of seeing Dean alive, they have been insistent on having Dean and Cas as their guests. Dean eventually explained the truth to both of them—of whatever he remembers about Sam, and now, he and Cas have an extra pair of hands helping them find his little brother. He also has a home.  
  
Dean knows that he hasn’t seen much kindness in his life. Between Cas and Brenda and Samantha, and his memories of Sammy, he feels lucky in ways he can’t remember feeling ever before, even with his busted memory and all.  
  
He stops this chain of thought and pays attention to Brenda. “Sure. You want me to make soup?”  
  
“No, I mean we’re going out,” she clarifies, opening the door some more and letting herself in. “Sam and I know this great steakhouse that you’ll like.”  
  
Dean looks at Castiel. “That’s cool.”  
  
“I’ll stay back,” Castiel offers, putting a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “I don’t have to eat anyway, and I can make some progress on our research.”  
  
“Hey, come along, man,” Dean says. “It will be cool.”  
  
Castiel takes a moment to decide. “Okay.”  
  
Dean grins at Brenda. “Awesome. We’re leaving in an hour?”  
  
“Yeah,” she says. “After Uke Hour.”  
  
“The uke.” Dean raises an eyebrow, tapping into the vague memories of Brenda strumming the instrument, sitting next to him on the balcony while they’d drunk Budweiser. However, in the month that Dean’s spent here, he hasn’t seen Brenda retreat to her ukulele again. Hell, he hasn’t even heard her sing or use her guitar outside of the classes that she’s conducting.  
  
“You wanna sit with me?” she asks Dean softly, her eyes growing warm.  
  
Dean holds her gaze and nods. “Sure.”  
  
She smiles, lips thinning and lines showing, and beckons to Dean. “Come on, then.”

 

  
  
  
“It’s been a month.”  
  
Ruby is tangled up against Sam, naked, her body heat seeping through his skin and making him uncomfortable. He tries to roll over, get her off him, but she burrows closer, her eyes smiling the way her lips are, as she plays with Sam’s belly button.  
  
He feels her finger, and a jump of arousal. “Stop this crap and answer me, Ruby.” He is tired, and Ruby’s fingers are leaving Sam’s belly, tracing downwards. Her breath is as warm as her body, puffing against his collarbone. Sam feels his dick stir, and realises he’s had enough. He’s trying to pull himself away when Ruby finally moves, brown eyes roving to him as she grasps his hand. “Sam.”  
  
“It’s been a month,” Sam repeats, pushing her off him as he sits up. “I need answers. You said this would work.”  
  
“It is.”  
  
“All I’ve done is exorcise demons, and bleed through my nose,” he snaps.  
  
“And that isn’t a good thing? The exorcism?” she asks, arching a sculpted eyebrow.  
  
Sam grits his teeth. “You know that’s not what I’m doing this for. You know—”  
  
“You want a magic psychic connection with Dean,” Ruby interrupts him blandly. “I get it. You’ve been saying that every time you fuck me while lapping up my blood, Sam, so believe me,  _I know_.”  
  
“And you promised I’d be able to talk to him! Tap into that weird dream or reality or wherever he is now, and  _talk to him_!”  
  
“I didn’t promise you that, Sam. I said, that maybe if you explored your capabilities, you might be able to. You can still try that.”  
  
“Are you going to tell me how?”  
  
“Do I look like one of Azazel’s special children?”  
  
Sam feels his nostrils flare, heat rushing up his face and indistinct roaring in his ear as he glares at Ruby. “You lied to me. You don’t know shit about how I can see Dean again, and you fucking lied to me.”  
  
“I’m a demon,” she shrugs, as though that’s an explanation to everything, which it is. “Besides, we need that mojo of yours.”  
  
“Oh, really?”  
  
Ruby places her hands on her hips, her eyes sparking. “You do realise, right, that even if you find Dean before you do Lilith, you’re gonna have to kill her anyway?” She pauses. “Dean’s been held captive a long time, Sam. He might not be the same person who you lost all those months ago.”  
  
“Six months.”  
  
“And four months of Hell, in those six months,” she points out. “They weren’t four months for him, Sam. They were forty years.”  
  
Sam’s throat suddenly goes dry. “What?”  
  
“Hell time,” she scoffs. “Like doggy years or whatever. It really sucks ass. And Dean’s been through all that, and then two months with Lilith…”  
  
Sam’s breath hitches. “We need to hurry.”  
  
“Then stop stalking Dean and get to killing Lilith first.”  
  
“No,” Sam says. “If I can’t find Lilith soon enough…” he stops, swallows around the lump in his throat, and continues, “if I can’t I – I don’t want Dean to be worse than he already is.” He shakes his head again and looks at Ruby with resolve. “I need to find Dean first.”  
  
“With your psychic subconscious?” she asks him, smiling crookedly..  
  
“I’ll figure it out. You can leave.”  
  
She gazes at him for a long moment, her tongue licking at the corner of her mouth, and she sighs, drawing out a blade from her pocket. “Better take another hit, then. And tell me when you find this particular pot of gold.”  
  
He ignores her as his eyes fall on the crimson of the blood as it wells from the wound, and he darts forward to put his mouth on the cut to taste the saltiness of her thick blood.

  
  
“Cas is really an angel, right?”  
  
Brenda sits with her hand frozen over the strings of the ukulele as she peers at Dean with curiosity dotting her face. Dean reclines against his seat and takes another sip of beer. “A hundred per cent,” he says gruffly.  
  
“And… not that I’m Christian or anything, but… is that allowed? You and Cas?”  
  
Dean shrugs. “I don’t think his fellow mooks know about us. I’m pretty sure his ass would be positively kicked.”  
  
Brenda nods and reaches down to tune the ukulele. “I couldn’t play, you know. After…” she gulps and takes a look at Dean. “After Sam and I found you that day.”  
  
Dean remembers a distant echo of a howling dog, and claws, and the roaring of hellfire. For a moment, he can feel the heat, a bead of sweat rolling down his back, and he puts the Bud to his mouth again, swallowing the liquid down slowly as he mulls over Brenda’s confession. “I’m sorry,” he says at long last.  
  
She smiles. “You died, and  _you’re_  apologising?”  
  
“Apparently, it doesn’t mean what it’s supposed to mean. For me.” Dean shrugs, pulling his jacket closer. “And the fact that you had to see me like that—”  
  
“Those were happy days when you were here,” Brenda says, “really happy days.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Well…” Brenda is staring at the distant sky, her eyes growing dull as she speaks. “The day I found you at the cemetery, I was there to see my sister.” She pauses. “My twin.”  
  
Dean feels a pang of sadness ripple through him as he bends forward, eyes on his shoes, and listens to Brenda continue. “I lost her a year ago. To a freak accident. Never quite got over the shock of it, I guess.” She turns around, her eyes a little damp. “Sam’s been awesome, but I’ve snapped at her a lot. Been a terrible person. And then I found you, and I kinda got to rescue you, and I was really, really proud, you know? That there would be someone out there, who, because of me, wouldn’t be missed by his parents, or his sister, or, well,” she draws a shuddering breath, “his brother.”  
  
Dean thinks of Sam;  _his_  Sam, with his smile and everything about his dream, and he swallows. “I’m so sorry, Brenda.”  
  
“Don’t be,” she says. “I’ve been really lucky, Dean. You have no idea.” She looks down at her tuned ukulele. “Can I play you your song?”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
“You don’t hate it?” she asks, the sadness dissolving away as she smiles at Dean. “You don’t think I ruined the original?”  
  
“No, I don’t.” And, once again, he thinks of how lucky he is too, as he watches Brenda settle herself to start playing. She clears her throat, striking a cord on the ukulele, before starting to play.  
  
_“There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold_  
_And she's buying a stairway to heaven._  
_When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed_  
_With a word she can get what she came for._  
_And she's buying a stairway to heaven._ _”_  
  
Dean smiles at Brenda, humming along, watching her hand move, and he remembers Sam for the umpteenth time that day. His brother—his only family, the person he grew up with and the person who means more to him than Dean can even remember. He sorely misses those memories because he wants them back, and he wants to get to know Sam better.  
  
_“There's a sign on the wall but she wants to be sure,_ _”_  Brenda continues, her smile briefly matching Dean’s,  _“_ _Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings._  
_In a tree by the brook, there's a songbird who sings,_  
_Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven._ _”_  
  
Dean chuckles. “You’re a softie.”  
  
She passes a mock glare.  _“_ _There's a feeling I get when I look to the west,_  
_And my spirit is crying for leaving._ _”_  
  
Dean sighs. “All right.” Before he knows it, he starts to sing along, his voice off-key but eliciting a smile from Brenda all the same.  
  
_“In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees,_  
_And the voices of those who stand looking._ _”_  
  
He continues; thinking of what it means for him and Brenda, and about how his life seems to have changed drastically, and how he’s here, in this place, doing things that he’s never imagined himself doing at all.  
  
Dean wants Sam back. He needs Sam to come back.  
  
They finish the song together, Brenda’s voice leaking emotion and beauty, while Dean tries not to sound too bad. And the song lingers in the air long after they’re done, resonating with Dean’s every sense and putting him into a state of ease that he hasn’t known in a long time.  
  
Dean relishes the last of his beer. He realises then that Brenda is staring at him, and he puts the bottle down to look at her. “You’re dying to say something,” he says, quirking a smile.  
  
“Yeah,” she pauses, “no… I…” She bites her lip, seemingly unsure of how to proceed.  
  
“Spit it out!”  
  
Brenda shakes her head and smiles. “No, I just… you know when we got you back here from the hospital? When—”  
  
“You’re sounding like you gave birth to me.”  
  
“Shut up.”  
  
Dean laughs. “Go on.”  
  
“I just… I never reckoned you were gay. Which…” she purses her lips, “it’s kinda stupid, because  _I’m_  gay, and I should have known better.”  
  
Dean shakes his head. “According to Cas, I’ve had my share of girls.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Apparently, I’m popular in Heaven for my,” Dean makes air-quotes, “hedonism.”  
  
“Really? So why Cas?” Brenda looks inquisitive, the curiosity taking a few years off her face.  
  
“It’s just…” Dean shrugs, “ _Cas_.” He doesn’t explain it further, because he  _can’t_. He had tried to figure it out in the beginning, why he felt this way for Cas, but then he’d stopped when he couldn’t. And ever since, he hasn’t really let himself think about the dynamic between him and Cas. He sees no point anymore, because right now, it’s been a month and under all the circumstances that are his life, this is the one thing that isn’t awful. So Dean doesn’t feel the need to ponder it. What he has with Cas, he’d like it to stay the way it is.  
  
Brenda pulls out her ukulele case. “You know, I get it.”  
  
“You do?”  
  
“Yeah.” She shuts the case and lifts it into her lap as Dean reaches for her empty beer bottle, watching him. “I’m glad you have that, Dean.”  
  
“What? Cas?”  
  
“Yeah. Like you said. Just…  _Cas_.”  
  
Dean chuckles, feeling warmth rise in him at the thought of his angel, sitting in their room right now, probably poring through something for Sam; and it’s Sam,  _Sam_ , always  _Sam_ , and Cas doesn’t even care that Dean puts him second; or that almost everything they do, they do for Sam.  
  
As this strikes him, Dean suddenly finds himself telling Brenda that he won’t be joining her and Samantha for dinner either.  
  
“I knew it,” she says, smiling as she heads to her room. “Don’t worry about it. Have a good time with your  _just Cas_.” She’s smiling wider, and Dean feels his cheeks grow hot.  
  
“Shut up,” he says, lips twitching slightly.  
  
He rushes to the guest room, finding Castiel cross-legged on the bed. Dean shuts the door behind him hurriedly as he moves forward and pulls the book away from Castiel’s arms. He tugs Cas up by the collar so he’s kneeling, and the next moment, Dean is crashing his lips into Castiel’s.  
  
“Thank you,” Dean says, pulling away slightly. He brings his hands forward to take off Cas’s trenchcoat.  
  
Cas realises what’s happening and pauses, pushing at Dean gently. “Dean—”  
  
Dean bends forward, grasping at Cas’s shirt as he plants a kiss over his collarbone.  
  
“Dean.”  
  
Dean looks up. “I want this.”  
  
Castiel disentangles himself. “I don’t think it’s right. If my superiors find out—”  
  
“Screw ‘em,” Dean says, moving to kiss Cas’s neck, and catching a fold of skin between his lips. They’ve been holding off on sex because of all this—because of a lot of things; Dean’s amnesia and the uncertainty between them, and the way this all started. But, this is Cas. This is  _Cas_. Dean knows him some and he wants to know him more. Dean needs Cas to know what this means to him; what Cas means to him. Screw those superior angels and their sanctimonious bunkum—really;  _screw them all_.  
  
Castiel’s arms are on Dean’s shoulders, poised to push him away, but a moment later, they come to wrap around Dean. Dean sucks at the sensitive skin on Cas’s neck, and he feels Cas relax against him, drifting his head .  
  
Dean smiles to himself as he moves upward to Cas’s jaw, to his lips again, keeping his mouth a little open to receive Cas’s tongue, and flicking his own against it. His hands clench onto the material of Cas’s trenchcoat. He moves so as to pull it off, and reaches for the tie next. “Fuck, man,” he whispers, “you’re  _hot_.”  
  
In a flash he’s untucking Cas’s shirt, a hand moving up against Cas’s bare waist as he bites at Cas’s lower lip. His other hand is on Cas’s nape, his thumb brushing at the short bristles there, slowly, surely.  
  
They undress down to their boxers and Dean’s wriggling onto the bed, tucking himself against Cas’s side and sliding his hand past the angel's waistband. Cas opens his mouth, strokes his tongue against Dean’s. He grunts at Dean’s fingers, which are teasing at Cas’s cock.  
  
Dean has a finger on Cas’s slit, two others circling his head. Cas hitches against him as Dean draws away to suck at his lip. He moves to Cas' ear, breathing hot and heavy, pulling his lips over his teeth and yanking at sensitive skin while continuing to rub, down below. Cas is hard now, and Dean can feel himself pressing against his boxers as he pushes his half-hard cock against Cas’s waist.  
  
“Dean,” Cas whispers, while Dean nibbles behind his ear. Dean holds Cas’s shoulder steady with his free hand, and brushes his finger against the slick covering his slit in one short stroke. He rubs the shaft and continues this rhythm, his mouth now limp against Cas’s neck as his own breath starts to shudder. Cas trembles against him, heaving a short gasp, tightening all over, and he’s coming. He spurts, warm and wet and thick in Dean’s hand. Dean’s cock is now stirring in its half-hardness as Cas turns, sweaty and bleary eyed. They kiss, coiling into each other.  
  
Dean gives in to the kiss, deepening it, returning to the familiarity of Cas’s tongue, grunting in between, pulling away, as his breathing starts to hitch. He runs a hand  down the length of Cas’s upper arm and lower, exploring him, as he feels his fingers, slow and fast, and then slow, and sexy, and  _fuck, fuck, fuck_.  
  
He throws his head back, toes curling while Cas goes on mercilessly. Dean’s moaning against his skin, and “oh,” and “yeah, oh God, Cas,” and in a moment, Dean comes too, and his boxers are wet, as is Cas’s hand. He’s repeating Cas’s name, again and again, and he knows; he knows what he’d meant when he told Brenda about Cas—about Cas being just Cas, as his whole world lights up and spins quickly enough to blur everything out for him.  
  
The moment is perfect in its imperfection, desperation, and Dean knows this time, for sure, that even though his memories fail him, he’s never felt anything like this before.

 

  
  
  
“Sam… oh,  _fuck_.”  
  
Ruby’s hands are in Sam’s hair as he brushes her inner thighs with his fingers. He moves up, a hand on her pubic mound while he fingers her with the other, hand sliding loosely, and dipping a little into the opening, before stroking her in light circles.  
  
“ _Sam_.”  
  
He moves his face in and her legs swing convulsively when his nose brushes against her clit, tongue lightly licking at the wetness below. He can feel goosebumps of his own, and his cock prods against his boxers hopefully.  
  
Sam takes a sharp breath and continues to lick in large strokes, up and down and around, leaving his tongue loose and gentle. He can feel Ruby stiffen as she hisses, her hands clutching him tighter with the mounting pleasure.  
  
Sam pauses a second. He moves in for her clit, his tongue flicking along the lips below and up the ridge, right up to the tip. Ruby gasps and arches against the bed. Sam smiles to himself, grasping at her thighs as he brushes his tongue against her once again; this time shorter strokes as his fingers leave her thigh to go down again and into her. She grunts. “S-Sam!”  
  
He licks her more, and harder, so that she quivers, gasping, her fingers pulling at his hair, and her nails leaving stinging half-moons along the nape of his neck.  
  
He repeats his action, curls his finger inside her. Her whole body reacts to it as she comes in great big gasps. She’s shuddering, climaxing in short bursts and spasms and she’s panting. “Sam,” she calls out again, voice low and almost guttural. “F-Fuck.”  
  
Sam pulls away to see her half-shut eyes, as he reaches for the knife that she hides in her boot.  
  
He extracts it, and Ruby is still shaking with ecstasy as he straddles her. He presses the blade against her forearm; she barely reacts to it, and she barely reacts to Sam putting his mouth to the blood again. Except for her hand, which lifts to stroke his hair as he begins to suck.  
  
He hopes the sex will temporarily numb her mind enough so that she doesn’t realise just how desperate he is for blood. But it’s been a month since that dream, and Sam can’t wait anymore. Tonight, somehow, he will see Dean again.  
  
Even if it means more demon blood.   


  
  
  
“Dean.”  
  
Sleep is still inviting him into its arms when he hears Castiel’s voice, and he stirs, trying to burrow himself into his angel, but instead, is met with Castiel’s hand on his shoulder.  
  
“Dean.”  
  
His eyes open. “Jesus, Cas,” he whispers. “’M trying to sleep.”  
  
“I wanted to talk to you before you slept and forgot everything.”  
  
Dean swallows at Castiel’s straightforward answer and adjusts himself in his covers, rolling to his side so he’s facing Cas. The room is dark, and he can barely make out Cas’s outline from the aborted rays of moonlight that hit the curtains from the outside. Dean sighs and reaches over to wrap his arm around Castiel’s waist. “Are you going to talk or not?”  
  
He senses Cas’s small nod and pulls closer, as Castiel whispers. “I… I feel something.”  
  
Dean grins. “That’s usually the point of sex… or, in our case, the hand jobs.”  
  
“No,” Castiel tells him. “Dean, my superiors; if they realise I’ve disobeyed—”  
  
“You haven’t disobeyed, dude.” Dean tries to convince him, rubbing his thumb back and forth on the small of Cas’s back. “You still go up there when they call. We’re still tracking the seals even if we’re doing a crappy job, and last month, you even managed to catch Uriel in the act of murdering all those angels.”  
  
“True,” Castiel agrees, “but… you know, we’re not supposed to engage in these… activities.”  
  
“What, sex?”  
  
“Hedonism.”  
  
Dean lets out a chuckle, remembering his conversation with Brenda, and moves forward, lightly brushing his lip against Castiel’s nose. “You work hard, Cas,” he mutters, kissing the tip. “You deserve better.”  
  
“I’m a soldier.”  
  
“Yeah, and…” Dean presses his lip against Cas’s brow, “when I’m not so tired, I’ll let you know how much you’re appreciated.”  
  
“Angels aren’t supposed to ask for appreciation, Dean,” Cas replies in all seriousness. “If we try expecting rewards for God’s work, we won’t be altruistic in our causes anymore.”  
  
“And,” Dean says, pulling back as he lays a hand on Cas’s cheek, “I go by what I said earlier: screw ‘em.”  
  
“But—”  
  
“You’re still obeying them… kinda. You’re doing great,” Dean says. He removes his hand from Cas’s cheek and moves forward to rest against his chest, feeling the comforting warmth from Cas’s body wash over him. “Now let me sleep, or you’ll not get your prize tomorrow.”  
  
“Whenever you sleep, you get lost,” Castiel says, his voice sad. “You forget.”  
  
Dean looks up at him. “Yeah, I do, but you’re always here to bring me back. Isn’t that what’s important?”  
  
Cas doesn’t reply, and Dean smiles as he holds him. He thinks of Sam, hoping, praying to meet Sam in his dreams again. Just one more time. Just another time…

 

  
  
  
It starts even more abruptly than Sam had expected. He is sitting on a low wall of a playground, his eyes on the merry-go-round as it creaks and creaks, spinning in a slow circle from the wind, reminding Sam of his childhood—of Dean and his high, kind voice, and Dad and his leather jacket with the smell of gun powder and whiskey and…  _Dad_. He remembers bright mornings and dark nights, and Dean tucking him in at night and banishing all those monsters under his bed. He remembers  _Thundercats_  and Lucky Charms and…  
  
_Sammy._  
  
_Dean?_  
  
Sam is whipping around, and his heart is coming up in his throat because fuck,  _fuck_ , there’s his brother, and he’s smiling, and Sam fucking doesn’t know how this happened—just that he drank the blood and concentrated really hard.  
  
And here he is. Here is Dean—standing in front of him, his eyes and his face smiling as he walks forward, and Sam’s getting off the playground and stumbling to his brother as fast as he can.  
  
It takes too long, an eternity, almost, to reach Dean. Sam hears the caw of a raven as he stands there before his brother, drinking in Dean’s appearance: the green eyes and the smile and everything His throat has a lump in it, as his breath hitches.  
  
Dean looks kind as he opens his arms to Sam.  
  
_Sammy._  
  
And before he knows it, Sam’s hugging his brother, his chin resting where Dean’s neck meets his shoulder as he shuts his eyes. He’s fisting Dean’s shirt, breathing and whispering, and calling out his brother’s name.  
  
_Dean._


	10. Chapter 10

 

 

  
  
Dean can never meet Sam for long enough. It’s in snippets, tiny intervals of time, and Dean barely gets to see Sam for a few seconds before the scenery around them shakes, and he is back in his bed at Brenda’s guest room. He always wakes up disappointed and frustrated. Cas notices and is kind and patient about it—attributes that Dean never thought he’d pick up when he’d first got to know Castiel.   
  
It’s funny how everything has changed. It’s not just Cas; though Dean appreciates how Cas now  _feels_ , if at least just for Dean, there are other things that are different. Like Sam. Sam’s not like the kid Dean left behind. Well, he was never a kid, but he’s got this scary aura about him, now; this dangerous look in his eyes that Dean has never seen before. He tries to remember that Sam’s been alone all these months, and that he has suffered a loss. Grief changes people. Dean knows best, because Dad.  _Dad_. How can he ever forget? And Dean himself has changed.    
  
He learns to take what he gets with Sam. He can’t complain. He can only promise himself that he’ll find his little brother.   
  
Every dream starts with Dean finding Sam in the same children’s park. It’s never for long, though, because when they try to talk, when the conversation just begins, he's pulled back to consciousness.    
  
Dean doesn’t know what’s up with this, but it feels like an electrical line fritzing towards the end. Like someone, or _something_  is trying to hold them up for as long as it can, and is just giving up. But sometimes, on the worst days, it’s enough to just catch a glimpse of Sam, smiling at him from his spot on the playground wall, before being yanked back.   
  
Dean has vague memories of being in close quarters with Sam and dealing with a lot of frustration as a result. He wonders when it all changed. Six months away from your brother can work wonders with annoyance levels, he reckons.   
  
Sam and Dean, even in their limited time, fall into an easy rhythm. Dean’s lips are automatically smiling when he sees his brother, and Sam’s immediately walking towards him, dimples big and deep, but they don’t get to talk—they never do, because one minute into any conversation, they’re lost again. And  _Where are you?_  Dean will ask Sam, and Sam will ask him the same, but they’re always transported back before they can hear an answer.   
  
On one occasion, Sam seems to be edgy the moment Dean stops by that playground. Dean doesn’t know why and he wants to ask, but before he can, his arms are full of Sam, huge and puppy-eyed and sniffling, as he buries his face in Dean’s shoulder. Dean wonders what’s happened, but for that moment, he just rests his hand in Sam’s hair.   
  
_Girl_ , he whispers.  _Such a girl._   
  
He never gets to ask what the matter is, as the whole scenery dissolves while Sam is still in his arms, and he wakes up panting, sweating and in tears himself, with his mind blank to everything. It’s mid-morning and the curtains are drawn, and in a jiffy, there are fingers on his forehead bringing back a plethora of memories, including Sam. Cas is right beside Dean, and he starts when he notices the tears on Dean’s cheek.   
  
“Dean?”   
  
“I’m okay,” Dean says, wiping sheepishly at the dampness.  _But Sammy isn’t okay and I need to get to him._   
  
Cas seems to listen to that before Dean has to say it, and Dean tries to sleep again with Cas’s gentle arm wrapped around his waist, but he realises he can’t.   
  
He needs Sam back.   
  
0   
  
The angels are getting pissed. Dean and Cas are always sure to use angel warding while they’re having sex, but the angels aren’t stupid. Cas is great at denying his shit, though. And he’s great at being squeaky-clean in a second.   
  
They almost stop another seal, but Dean gets hurt and Cas stops whatever he is doing to help Dean, making them both fail. Dean wants to yell at Cas for this but he doesn’t because he is—okay, and this is cheesy—really touched that Cas cares so much.    
  
However, it doesn’t all work out that well because Cas gets demoted for being too attached. He comes to tell Dean this, shoulders slumped, and Dean is exasperated.   
  
“They demoted you for having feelings?” he asks. “Do they really know what you’re doing?”   
  
“Angels aren’t supposed to feel,” Cas replies dejectedly, as he leans against the wall behind him.   
  
“Bull,” Dean snaps. “What’s wrong with that?”   
  
“We’re warriors, Dean,” Cas tells him, eyes flashing. “We’re supposed to look at everything objectively, without discriminating. And ever since…” he looks away.   
  
“What?” Dean asks him, advancing towards him. “Spit it out.”   
  
“I am unable to separate my acquired human emotions. I am not properly desensitised for an angel. I care too much.”   
  
Dean feels a prickle of anger, as well as a shudder at Cas’s honesty. “So you wanna leave me?”   
  
“I didn’t say that.”   
  
“Look, Cas, you’re free to go,” Dean tells him, although he can barely keep the annoyance out of his voice. Because, really, what the fuck?   
  
“I don’t want to leave.”   
  
Dean huffs, and tries to cool down. Between Sam and the seals and everything else, he’s starting to get edgy, and he hates letting it out on Cas. He doesn’t apologise for being rude, because Cas doesn’t need it. “Those angel siblings of yours are such assholes, man,” he says. “I’ve never laid eyes on such dickbags before, and I can remember a lot of dickbags right now.”   
  
“If they know that you and I are having intercourse…”   
  
“It’s none of their business. What you do with me is not their problem, as long as we’re chasing those fucking seals, and right now, we’re doing that too.”   
  
“We’re slacking. That last one got broken because I got worried for you. You wouldn’t have been fatally wounded even if I didn’t try and help you.”   
  
“Thanks,” Dean snorts.   
  
“I’m just being practical.”   
  
“So what are you suggesting, then?” Dean asks him. “Breaking up?”   
  
“No. I… I can’t hide things from them. It’s the hiding that’s causing these problems. It’s making them suspicious.”   
  
“Well then,” Dean says, “Let’s clarify it with them.”   
  
“What—?” Cas doesn’t even finish his sentence when Dean quietens him with his own mouth. He presses Cas against the wall, sucking on his bottom lip, feeling it grow warm beneath his before pulling away and turning Cas around, going for the nape of his neck.   
  
Cas grunts, palming the wall as Dean tugs at the sensitive skin, alternatively kissing and sucking, and licking it with two strokes of his tongue. He repeats the process, feeling Cas puff hot breaths, his face sideways, his lips parted, the lower one wet and swollen from the kiss. Dean’s dick stirs and he undoes his jeans, letting them bunch at his ankles as he presses against Cas, his hips grinding rhythmically. Cas responds with a sigh and Dean reaches a palm down to Cas’s trousers to feel the bulge there.  He finishes sucking at Cas, moves over to kiss his neck, one hand going over to undo the button and zipper on Cas’s trousers, fingers creeping past his waistband.   
  
Cas’s breath hitches.   
  
Dean nips at his earlobe. His finger brushes against Cas’s slit at the same time, and Cas bucks against him once, moving his face to rest his forehead against the wall. He shudders when Dean kisses his ear again.   
  
“Tell your bosses,” Dean mumbles against Cas, thumb rubbing at his shaft, “that you’re with me.” Cas jerks forward, cock slick with pre-cum, sweat breaking out on his forehead as Dean traces circles.   
  
“D-Dean…”   
  
“You get me?” Dean’s voice is a whisper, and he can feel his own ecstasy mount and peak as he grinds against Cas.    
  
Cas sighs, moans, spurting onto Dean’s hand, and Dean feels him nod as he gyrates against Cas, shutting his eyes and breathing sharply. He comes in his boxers, breath catching in his throat, and slumps against Cas. He takes his hand out of his waistband and holding them both against the wall with his other arm encircles Cas’s waist.    
  
“Are you leaving?” he whispers, the sound muffled into Cas’s shoulder.    
  
“Yes,” Castiel replies. Dean’s heart sinks as Cas extracts himself from the embrace and turns around to cup Dean’s face. He smiles. “I’m leaving, so I can tell them all that I’m with you.”   
  
Dean blinks once, twice, and eyes the red circle on the nape of Cas’s neck. He chuckles. “You gonna go with that hickey this time?”   
  
“They need proof,” Cas replies, touching it briefly.   
  
Dean feels warmth bubble all over his body as he leans in and kisses Cas briefly on the mouth. He rests his forehead on Cas’s.    
  
“When they get all excited, tell them this is exclusive to you and me,” he mumbles, playing with the hem of Cas’s shirt, “’cause I ain’t giving no more heavenly hickeys to your jealous family.”   
  
0   
  
_Where are you?_  
  
Dean is sitting next to Sam, watching his brother in wonder as he asks the question. He wants to reach forward and put an arm around his brother and talk to him forever, but he knows his time is limited. The last time, he’d just had time to pull Sam into a hug before he’d woken up again, because Sam had been in tears; but Dean had never got to ask what upset Sam so much. He didn’t think Sam would give him an answer either, so he’d just hugged his brother—the best comfort he can offer right now.    
  
Ever since, Dean has been determined to find Sam again, and it had taken a week, a whole fucking week, and that’s how they’re here now, seated at the same playground from their childhood, under the coolness of the moonlight.   
  
Sam grins a half-smile.  _Right here,_  he says cheekily.   
  
_You know what I mean, moron._  
  
_Yeah._  Sam falls quiet for a moment.  _Yeah. I—Dean, it’s weird._   
  
_What?_  
  
_I am not sure what’s going on here._  
  
Dean looks around and reminds himself this is a dream. He grimaces.  _Yeah, man, tell me about it. So where are you? Does someone have you?_   
  
_No,_  Sam replies.  _But…_  he looks around,  _I don’t know if I should tell you where I am._ He pauses. _Someone’s listening._   
  
_Here?_  
  
_Yeah._  
  
_Who?_  
  
_I…_ Sam bites his lip. _I.. c-can’t say._ He stares at the tree, where Dean can see a couple of ravens, and Dean shudders.   
  
_Those fuckin’ birds are weird._  
  
Sam turns to him so quickly, Dean’s scared his neck might snap.  _They came to you too?_   
  
_Not really,_ Dean says, _but one sat on my shoulder once._   
  
_Did it say something?_  
  
_It… it did._  
  
_About Huginn  and Muninn?_  
  
_How do you know?_  
  
Sam swallows. _Someone’s spying on us._   
  
_Who?_  
  
_I can’t say. But those ravens, specifically Huginn and Muninn, are said to have been Odin’s eyes and ears for everything that happened around the world. They’re mythological spies. And when you went missing? These ravens kept coming to me._  
  
_And who do you think is sending them?_ Dean asks him.   
  
_I can’t—_  
  
_You can tell me, Sam. Nothing’s gonna happen. Trust me. I’ll handle it._  
  
_It’s dangerous._  
  
_I get that,_ Dean tells him _, but one of us has got to look for the other, right?_   
  
_You can’t look for me, Dean,_ Sam says. _I have to do it. You don’t understand. I’ll figure this out and I’ll get you out, but don’t ask me where I am._   
  
_From where exactly are you going to get me out?_ Dean asks him, feeling his eyebrow arching.   
  
_I—_  
  
_Who’s listening to us? What is happening, Sam? Tell me._  
  
Sam hesitates, chews on his lips, and looks up at the birds again, his unsure eyes starting to glare at them.   
  
_Sammy?_  
  
He looks pissed. Dean puts a hand on his shoulder. _Sam, talk to me, man._   
  
_Lilith._  
  
_Lilith?_ Dean raises an eyebrow _. That demon chick?_   
  
_Yeah,_ Sam confirms. _And I’ll get you out of her hold._   
  
_Dude,_  Dean says to him.  _I’m okay. I’m not with Lilith._   _I have a little amnesia issue, but the angels seem to think it’s a curse, and not Lilith who’s doing it._   
  
_Angels?_  
  
_Yeah,_  Dean says.  _Unbelievable, right? Anyway, we’ve been looking for you. Cas,_  and Dean feels a little warmth rush up his cheeks as he says the name,  _he’s the angel who pulled me out of Hell. And,_   _well, he reckons whoever’s got you has kept you well hidden._   
  
_Cas_ , Sam repeats, the ghost of a smile perking up his lips, but he doesn’t ask further, and Dean knows that Sam knows. How the kid can do this, he has no fucking clue; but Sam’s awful that way, and Dean loves and hates that his brother can read him.   
  
He has also missed this, so badly. Although, Dean would rather rip off his own arm than admit that to Sam.   
  
Sam’s contemplating something, his jaw clenching and unclenching. Two moments later, he finally talks.  _Tell me about this curse._   
  
_I don’t know all of it,_  Dean replies earnestly,  _but when I wake up, I’m not gonna remember any of this unless Cas reminds me. And—_   
  
_And?_  
  
_My dreams are the only times I remember everything. It’s like amnesia that only works when I’m conscious,_  Dean says, _and Cas still doesn’t know why it’s happened or why it is the way it is._   
  
_So when you wake up, now…_  
  
_My memory amounts to squat,_ Dean says, nodding.  _I won’t remember my name. I won’t remember who I am, and Cas will remind me; though his mojo only uncovers the bits from a little before the Hell, and onwards._   
  
Sam takes a deep breath.  _So you remember Hell?_   
  
_No._ Dean isn’t really guilty about the blatant lie.  _They wiped out my memory before they sent me upstairs._   
  
There is silence. Dean feels a lump form in his throat as he goes over to smooth Sam’s hair. He moves his hand down and squeezes the back of his neck lightly. Sam leans into the touch and looks a little disheartened when Dean pulls away.   
  
_Where are you, Sammy?_  Dean asks his little brother.  _Just tell me—give me a hint. I’ll come and get you, man._   
  
Sam takes a while to answer, and Dean’s almost scared that he’ll wake up again.    
  
_I can’t tell you,_  Sam replies in a whisper _. I know someone’s listening, Dean, but I lost you, and I can’t go through that again if I screw this up._   
  
The hurt in Sam’s eyes is so deep when he says it that Dean can feel the loss and grief radiate off his brother. Sam starts to speak, slowly, about how he tried to look for Dean, and it does nothing to make Dean feel better. He clenches his fist in anger, at their destinies and the angels and the universe that got this to happen to his brother. At the god that broke his brother. Before he can ask Sam anything else, he feels the dream break, although the fury comes back the moment Cas is touching his forehead again.

  
  


  
  
“What the hell is going on here?” Sam booms.  
  
He is towering over Ruby as she stands before him with her arms crossed, her face confused and slightly amused. He grits his teeth, clenching his jaw rhythmically and glaring at her. She lied to him. Of course she lied to him again. The talk that Sam’s had with Dean in that dream goes completely against the crap that Ruby has been feeding Sam all these days.  
  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ruby says calmly. “Can we sit down, and sort this out?”  
  
“I met Dean again,” Sam tells her, “and he isn’t with Lilith.”  
  
“Where is he, then? I’d love to come with you to go and get him.”  
  
“I couldn’t ask him. I think you’re right about Lilith spying on us.”  
  
“Those ravens again?”  
  
“Yeah,” Sam says, “he told me that unlike him, I haven’t disappeared off the map wherever he is—not completely.”  
  
“Good, then maybe he can track us,” Ruby snaps. “Stop biting my head off with this crap of yours, Sam.”  
  
“No,” Sam says, “that’s the thing. He has been trying, and he can’t locate me at all.”  
  
“Much like you can’t locate him.”  
  
Sam shakes his head. “When Dean vanished, he left with all his stuff. I told you, it was like he wasn’t born at all.”  
  
“Sam,” Ruby sighs. “That’s one of Lilith’s tricks. I told you too. Stop confusing me.”  
  
“Dean is not with Lilith,” Sam finally says, stepping forward, overpowering her with his height again. “He’s not being held captive.”  
  
“Another of Lilith’s ruses, then,” Ruby replies, shrugging. “She’s obviously messing with Dean’s head.”  
  
“Yeah, but you know what?” Sam asks her, “Dean is working with an angel.”  
  
There is a long, silent, moment. Sam looks into Ruby’s narrowed, shrewd eyes, trying to figure out what she’s thinking, but is instead met with a snort.  
  
Before he knows it, Ruby is laughing, eyes streaming, chest heaving up and down as she doubles over, holding her stomach. She laughs, laughs for what looks like an eternity, sending the mercury up on Sam’s temper as she holds her hips and straightens up.  
  
“You—” she manages between giggles, “you believe that crap?”  
  
“This isn’t funny,” Sam snaps at her.  
  
“ _Angels_ , Sam. It  _is_  goddamned funny!”  
  
“My brother would have been the last person to believe in them if they didn’t exist,” Sam informs her, going over to sit on the couch.  
  
“And when I’m telling you—when I’ve been telling you all this time about just how powerful Lilith is, you weren’t listening?” Ruby asks him. She pauses, her mirth softening to sympathy, as she comes down to sit beside him. “Sammy…”  
  
“ _Sam_ ,” he grits out.  
  
“Sam,” she complies, edging closer, “this is all Lilith. Trust me. And when this is over, you will get your brother back, okay?”  
  
He frowns at her. “Fuck, Ruby, you’re a  _demon_.”  
  
She raises an eyebrow. “I was hoping you’d have noticed before, you know.”  
  
“No. But…” he takes a sharp breath. “How can I trust you? How do I know that you’re not lying to me? That I’m not the one who Lilith has on hold, like Dean thinks?”  
  
She looks at him for a long moment and meets eyes, speaking softly. “I have a solution for all of that,” she says. “I have proof.” And, she draws her knife, handing it over to Sam, as he holds out her forearm for him. “If this weren’t real, Sam,” she says, “you wouldn’t be able to taste my blood, or use it to amp up your powers.”   
  
She has her hands on his collar and fingers run against the sides of his neck and his face as she comes over and straddles him, and Sam shakes his head, trying to push her away. “No,” he says, “forget it. No. I’m not doing this.”  
  
Ruby reaches for his hand that’s holding the knife. “It’s okay, Sammy,” she whispers as she takes it from him to cut herself. “It’s okay.” She makes the wound and comes forward to tempt Sam, holding his cheek lightly as he gives in to it.  
  
  


  
  
  
“Do you think someone’s spying on us?” Dean asks, as he watches the confused expression on Castiel’s face. He holds out his hand to rest it on Cas’s forearm.  
  
“Hey,” he says, “you told me someone’s hiding Sam from us—probably Lilith; but you don’t happen to have a hint about where, do you?”  
  
Castiel shakes his head. “I would have told you. As for her spying… it is entirely possible.”  
  
Dean holds his gaze for a moment, and then drops his eyes to the floor. “Yeah,” he says, “I guess you would have.” He pauses. “I saw Sammy again.”  
  
Castiel is immediately interested in that. He comes down to sit beside Dean,  taking Dean’s hand in his as the mattress of the bed dips and sighs a little under his weight. “What did he say?”  
  
“Not much,” Dean scoffs. “Moron. I just know that he’s been through a whole lot of crap, looking for me.”  
  
“And how is that?”  
  
Dean purses his lips. “We were working a case right here in San Antonio before we got separated. And I apparently disappeared without a trace.”  
  
Castiel narrows his eyes. “According to Brenda and Samantha, you were right here. Until you went to Hell, that is.”  
  
“Exactly,” Dean says. “And Sam and I have some friends... I can’t remember them, but he told me their names. Ellen and Bobby? I knew them in my dream, but…” He grits his teeth. “My memory is too fucked up to remember anything else.”  
  
“I’m sorry. I don’t know about your friends, Dean.”  
  
“Yeah, but… he said that they were all acting weird… and some monster had got them. He even went on to think that the monster had got me, because he kept hearing me and seeing glimpses of me the first two weeks that I was gone.”  
  
There is a moment of silence. “I am not sure what to make out of it,” Castiel says finally.  
  
“Sam was here in San Antonio. You don’t think he could still be here?”  
  
“We scoured this town.” Cas’s hand presses lightly against Dean’s fingers.  
  
“I know,” Dean replies, dejected. “I wish…” he takes a deep breath, “gosh, I just want my brother back.”  
  
“I understand.”  
  
Dean looks up and smiles at Castiel. “Thanks, man.”  
  
“I doubt this is the last time you’re dreaming about him, Dean,” Cas tells him quietly. “So when you see him the next time, maybe you could ask who Ellen and Bobby are, and where you can find them.”  
  
“Yeah, I will,” Dean says to him. He lies back down on the bed, slowly, Cas watching over him, as he crosses his arms over his chest and stares up at the ceiling. “I wish I could fall asleep already,” he says. “I want to see Sammy again.”  
  
Castiel lowers himself beside Dean, and Dean feels an arm wind around his waist as hot breath whispers in his ear. “I know, Dean,” Cas says. “You can go back to sleep again. I will help you.” He pushes two fingers against Dean’s forehead, sending him back to the world of hope and care, and most of all:  _Sam_.  
  
0  
  
 _You came back!_  
  
Sam is smiling openly, moonlight falling on his cheeks as Dean goes over to sit next to him. Sam turns, and suddenly he’s looking at Dean like he’s just watched the most amazing magic trick at a carnival.  _I didn’t think you’d come back,_  he says.  
  
 _Well, if I don’t keep up with my brother,_  Dean replies,  _it won’t bode well for society. This is to keep the whispering away._  
  
 _Sure_ , Sam snorts.  _You keep saying that.  I know that you really just miss me._  
  
 _Who in their right mind would miss you?_  
  
Sam’s nose twitches and he flashes Dean a bitchface—one of the most spectacular ones that Dean’s seen in a long time. He looks at Sam’s scrunched eyebrows and his grumpy mouth and the annoyance coming off him, and he suddenly wants to pull his brother into a hug and take him back with him to Cas and Brenda and the other Sam. He wants to get away from here.  
  
 _Jerk,_  Sam says, almost pouting at Dean, and  _Jesus_ , this kid.  
  
The annoying raven caws somewhere when Dean snorts.  _Bitch._  
  
They watch the merry-go-round for a couple of seconds. It doesn’t stop, just keeps rotating with all its ancient creaking, and Dean wonders how old it must be. He moves a little closer to Sam and puts a hand on his back because he needs it; he needs this right now. He knows that Sam does too. That’s when he remembers his and Castiel’s talk from before.  
  
 _Hey_ , he says, drawing Sam’s attention and looking at his brother’s moon-kissed face,  _do you think Bobby and Ellen might know anything?_  
  
 _I don’t know,_  Sam replies.  _They weren’t… right. And you haven’t been able to contact them either, and…_  he swallows, _what if they’re dead, Dean?_  
  
 _Hey,_  Dean says,  _they’re okay. I’m sure they are. And once I leave, I’ll be checking up on them first, and I’ll see if my experience matches yours, yeah?_  
  
 _You’re leaving?_  Sam sounds heartbroken enough for Dean to want to kill something.   
  
 _I’ll be back before you know it._  
  
 _It’s hardly been five minutes._  Sam has his puppy-dog eyes, now, turned on at Dean in full force, and Dean smiles at him, though his heart is breaking into a million pieces because, seriously, fuck this kid.   
  
 _You know it won’t be long,_  he says.  _Besides, we can’t stay here. We need to get out there in the real world and make sure this crap—Lilith or whatever is holding us like this—is out of the way too._  
  
Sam gives him that heartbreaking stare for two whole minutes, and looks away, sighing.  _Yeah, he says, I guess you’re right._  
  
Dean reaches over to ruffle his hair.  _Like I said, Sammy,_  he says, his voice soft,  _I’ll come back. Right here._  
  
He stands up and walks away from his brother, breaking out of his kingdom of dreams, and he only tells himself that once this is all over, nothing will touch him and Sam ever again. 

  
  
“You ready to try exorcising another demon?” Ruby asks when Sam opens his eyes, blinking them against the sudden light, and staring at the ceiling through his temporarily foggy vision.  
  
Her fingers are hooked on the waistband of Sam’s boxers and he pushes the blanket off him as he makes to get up.  
  
“Wait,” Ruby says as she grasps him, going over to brush his dick.  
  
“Not now,” Sam replies to her, clutching her wrist and trying to stop her, even though every single nerve fibre in him is protesting against her leaving. “We have to find Dean,” he says. “If, like you said, this exorcism is the first step towards that, let’s do it.”  
  
“The exorcism will help you take better control of your powers. And maybe with more practice, we can use the psychic connection to actually find Dean instead of just talking to him in your dreamland.”  
  
“Fine, then, let’s go.”  
  
She removes her hand from his boxers and looks at him with happiness spreading over her face. “This is great,” she says, looking oddly triumphant at the destruction of her own kind. “Sure—let’s do this!”  
  
Sam smiles back at her. “Let’s do this.” Demons are oddly selfish, even when it comes to their own species, and he’s going to use this to his advantage.  
  


  
  
Dean doesn’t call Bobby or Ellen. He’s supposed to have been dead for the last six months and as far as they know, he’s still dead, so he doesn’t want them to freak out. Instead, he just tracks down Bobby’s address, after which he and Cas start packing up the Impala with their things so they can take it once they’re back with Bobby. If he’s alive.   
  
Dean gives Samantha and Brenda a huge hug each, and a whole bag of Dum Dums to Jason, who hops up and down happily at them, and whines when Dean’s about to leave.  
  
“Pleeeaaase, Dim,” he says, raising puppy-dog eyes to counter Sam’s. He never quite stopped referring to Dean as ‘Jim’.  
  
  
“I’ll be back,” Dean replies to him. “Soon, okay?”  
  
“’Kaayyy.” He looks disheartened as he moves back to hug Samantha’s leg. Dean bids them all goodbye one last time, before nodding at Cas, who takes his hand and leads him a little ways from the house. He squeezes Dean’s hand one last time. His wings flutter, bringing a whoosh of air with them as Dean feels his stomach drop. The next moment, Dean is standing outside a large gate with a sign that says “Singer Salvage Yard”. He places a hand on the iron slat of the gate, feeling familiarity wash over him, and though he can’t remember this place, he knows it.  
  
There’s a house down the driveway, and Dean’s heart is hammering in his chest as he walks with Castiel at his side, who senses Dean’s nervousness and reaches to intertwine fingers with him.  
  
The whole yard is silent, and when Dean knocks at the door, he even wonders for a moment if nobody is inside. But the windows are open, so he reckons Bobby might just be enjoying some quiet time. Just as he’s thinking this, the door suddenly flies open, to reveal an older man at the doorway.  
  
“Dean?” Bobby whispers, eyes narrowing.  
  
“Hey, Bobby,” Dean replies, relieved, and feeling the urge to stumble in and just spill his story and beg for help from Bobby. However, he is not prepared for the gun that Bobby suddenly points at his face, hammer cocked and muzzle aiming for Dean’s forehead.  
  
“Tell me the truth, or I’ll blow yer brains out, ya sonovabitch. Who the hell are you, and why are you walking around in Dean’s body?


	11. Chapter 11

  
  
  


  
  
  
Sam wonders what changed the demons when he clenches his fingers, expelling black smoke from the mouth of the one he’s been trying to exorcise. He expects some chiding; some wise-ass remarks, but the demon says nothing as its mouth falls open and it chokes itself out, blowing down towards the floor in dark swirls and charring the tiles orange.   
  
Of course, demons are cowardly fuckers, and they could just be scared of Sam now that he doesn’t need Latin to exorcise them, but they never skip an opportunity to babble insults or to be assholes, even if they’re going back to Hell. This is weird.  
  
He thinks about all the demons he’s been exorcising, and about how none of them really acted like demons. Except Ruby.   
  
What is happening?  
  
Ruby gives him an approving look as she walks around the devil’s trap and reaches him. “Good job, Sam.” She pauses. “Another one?”  
  
“No, I’m going back to the apartment,” he tells her.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“To talk to Dean.”  
  
She rolls her eyes. “It’s the middle of the day. He won’t be around, Sam. He doesn’t just hang around in your subconscious, waiting for your grand return, you know.”  
  
“I need to talk to him.” Sam doesn’t provide further explanation.  
  
“Then wait for the night,” she replies. “This demon never gave us any information. We need to get to the more elite circles around Lilith if we want quick answers.”  
  
“Yeah,” he says, “but funny how they’re not talking at all, Ruby.” He raises suspicious eyes to her, watching her rake back her hair before placing her hands back on her hips.  
  
She blows out a breath. “They just don’t want to talk. We need to scare them some more.”  
  
“Yeah, and I really want to talk to Dean before I go further with this,” Sam tells her. “He said he’d be back soon; he might be contacting Bobby.”  
  
“And you think Bobby knows more about this than I do?” Ruby demands.  
  
“I think he knows enough.”  
  
“You’re wrong,” she says, her eyes fiery as she leans back against the pillar, eyeing the devil’s trap carefully. “Those people aren’t going to understand. Accept it.” She pauses, crossing her arms against her chest. “How do you think your beloved family is going to react when they get to know about the demon blood?”  
  
Sam feels his heart drop to his stomach. He looks away from Ruby as he cleans the knife against his jacket, rubbing the cloth over and over on spotless metal. He didn’t use it on the demon and there’s no blood on it, but he continues to clean it. He runs his tongue over his teeth. “This is temporary,” he says cautiously.  
  
“And, what?” Ruby asks him. “You gonna let go of all this once you have Dean again? These powers, everything you can do?” She takes a step forward, dark eyes boring into his. “Admit it, Sam, this shit feels awesome.”  
  
He swallows. “No.”  
  
“Okay, then, so you aren’t lying to yourself and me when you say that you’re visiting Dean in your  _dreams_?”  
  
He looks up at her, dumbfounded, as she continues, “We both know that you don’t actually need to sleep to get Dean into your subconscious. You’re using your powers.”  
  
“You taught me to use them,” Sam tells her, his tone rising to that of accusation. “You were the one who said this was possible, after I had that first dream.”  
  
“And that wasn’t a dream.”  
  
Sam blinks at her and she smiles. “You haven’t dreamed ever since Dean left, have you?”  
  
Sam's heart beats quick and loud. “How do you know?”  
  
She moves forward and touches his hair. “There’s nothing you can keep from me. There’s no secrets between us, Sam.” Her voice is just a whisper when she walks closer, brushing her mouth with his and catching his lower lip between her own.  
  
Sam puts two hands on her shoulders and pulls away. “I need to go back to the apartment,” he repeats.  
  
“Sam, I just told you—”  
  
“I am going back,” Sam replies through gritted teeth. “You can come along if you want.”  
  
She sighs. “I’m trying to help you here, you know? Killing Lilith is important, really important right now; trust me.”  
  
“And I’m sure that’s what Dean is trying to do too.”  
  
“Dean has no fucking idea what he’s doing!” Ruby snaps at Sam angrily. “He’s fucking stuck in some magic la-la land, playing with angel halos, and he has no clue, Sam!” She comes forward and grabs Sam’s jacket, clenching the material between her fists. “I don’t deserve this distrust from you. I’ve done nothing but tell you the truth and help you, and you can’t even listen to me. So if it’s going to be this way, just tell me, and I’ll leave you to figure out everything with Bobby and Dean.”  
  
Sam clenches his jaw, watching Ruby’s fists bunch his jacket. He takes a sharp breath. “Fine. Leave.” He pauses. “At least Dean and Bobby will tell me the fucking truth about what’s really going on.”  
  
“You want to know the truth?” she asks him, a mad leer forming on her face as she lets go and backs away. “The truth, Sam Winchester, is that you won’t last a fucking day without me.” She backs away some more, into the darkness of the room. “So when you figure that out,” she continues, “call me. And I’ll see if I can make it.”  
  
Sam folds his arms over his chest. “Fuck off.”  
  
She is gone before he has completed the phrase.  
  


  
  
Dean studies Bobby who is poring over a book, a glass of scotch in one hand while he takes his cap off with the other.   
  
“Balls,” Bobby hisses.   
  
It brings a smile to Dean’s lips. He can feel the deep-seated tingle of familiarity at Bobby’s words and his nerve endings crackle with warmth as he takes a sip of his own whiskey. “What is it, Bobby?”  
  
It had taken Bobby a while to believe that Dean was really Dean, and not a supernatural creature. He had tested Dean with all kinds of things, and even after that, it had taken an explanation from Castiel for Bobby to actually believe this. Once he had confirmed Dean’s identity, he had hugged Dean like a father would hug a son, and Dean had felt a lump in his throat at the gesture as he’d held on equally tight.  
  
After that, there wasn’t any dilly-dallying; they’d just straight-up gotten into the task of looking for Sam.  
  
Presently, Bobby turns a thick parchment page on his book and glances at Dean. “Did it occur to you, in those dreams, to ask Sam where he exactly was?”  
  
“Yeah,” Dean says. “He says someone’s listening to us, and he couldn’t tell me where he was.”  
  
“And makes you think someone kidnapped yer brother?”  
  
“Well, not exactly that, but figures,” Dean says, “although Sam seems think that I’ve been kidnapped too.”  
  
“Did you at least go back and tell him that you’ve confirmed that you’re okay?”  
  
“Haven’t had a chance,” Dean replies. “I saw Sam just this morning, and we talked about this. Cas zapped me here once we’d found out about you. But… wherever Sam is…”  
  
Bobby raises an eyebrow at him. “Spit.”  
  
“Apparently, you and Ellen tried to kill him.”  
  
“And he believed that?”  
  
“No…” Dean trails away. “’Cause you kinda turned into a zombie when you did it.”  
  
“That’s why he didn’t contact me,” Bobby says, nodding his head slowly as he tries to make sense. “Well, the real me anyway. Though this experience of his is a neon sign that you’re not the one in trouble here.”  
  
“Apparently not.”  
  
“And you have any idea how to find that idjit?”  
  
“Nope. Wouldn’t have come over otherwise, Bobby.” Dean looks at him with pleading eyes, and Bobby frowns.  
  
“I ain’t impressed by that, boy,” he says, shutting the book he’s been browsing. “Anyway, tell that angel of yers to make himself comfortable. This is going to take a while.”  
  
0  
  
Sam looks tired and slumped when Dean meets him again. It’s the same playground, and the moon is still full and bright, with ravens cawing at a tree branch nearby. Dean quickens his footsteps and sits next to his brother.  
  
 _Hey_ , Sam says, eyes fixed on the merry-go-round.   
  
 _Hey,_  Dean echoes. He pauses.  _Sammy, I found Bobby._  
  
 _What took you so long?_  Sam turns to him, sadness infiltrating his features.  
  
 _I was settling in, dude,_  Dean explains.  _With Cas and all, and then we were trying to look over books so we could find a spell to locate you._  
  
 _Did you find anything?_  
  
 _Not yet. Did you?_  
  
 _No, but Ruby has offered to help._  
  
 _Ruby is with you?_  
  
 _Yeah. She’s pretty useful,_  Sam tells him _. She was the one who told me about Lilith._    
  
 _So you trust her,_  Dean replies, as he plays with a loose thread on his jeans. He doesn’t want to call Sam out on that, but Ruby is a fucking demon. How the hell can Sam be so stupid?  
  
 _She’s helping,_  Sam says gently, interrupting his thoughts as though he knows.  _And_   _I am always gonna be here now. I’ll be here every day until we can really track each other._  
  
 _Come over to Bobby’s place,_  Dean tells him.  
  
 _No._  
  
 _Sammy… that was a weird mistake, okay? It was somehow related to that case we were working, some curse, and I don’t know why that happened to you._  
  
 _Yeah, Dean, sure. Everything’s related to that case we were working,_  Sam snaps.  _It can’t be something else, right? It can’t be Lilith playing a dirty trick?_  
  
 _So you're pissed at Bobby for this? He didn’t even do anything, man! Dean_  argues, exasperated. Sam’s in an obviously bad mood and he can’t figure out why, and he wants to shake his little brother by the shoulders and tell him to stop being a fucking brat.  
  
 _You sure Bobby’s safe?_  
  
 _Yeah,_ Dean says _. I checked, and Cas confirmed._ He swallows _. So. Ruby…_  
  
 _She’s helping me just like Cas is helping you, Dean,_  Sam says dejectedly.  
  
Dean feels the corners of his mouth lift into a grin.  _Exactly the same way?_  
  
 _Shut up._  
  
 _Seriously, though,_ Dean straightens up _, did she tell you about the seals?_  
  
 _What seals?_  
  
 _The sixty-six seals,_  Dean explains.  _Apparently, Lilith is trying to break them, and if she does all sixty-six, she’s gonna end up setting Satan free._  
  
 _Really?_  
  
 _Me and Cas tried to stop some from breaking, so yeah,_ Dean confirms.  _So I take it you didn’t know?_  
  
 _No_ , Sam replies,  _but maybe Ruby didn’t, either._  
  
 _That’s bull, Sammy, and you know it._  
  
 _She has helped me,_  Sam snaps, and Jesus, he’s said this three times already.  _In the past. So whatever you’re trying to imply, shut up._  
  
Dean raises his hands in defence. _Okay, Sparky. Jeez, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed._  
  
Sam abruptly stands up.  _We done here?_  
  
 _Yeah, yeah—_  Dean gets up too, remembering the last time and the drastic change in Sam’s attitude. He shoves his hands into his pockets, a little disheartened, as he looks at his brother,  _Just be careful about Ruby, okay?_  
  
 _I survived six months without you,_  Sam reminds him,  _so maybe you don’t have to baby me, you know._  
  
 _Fine,_  Dean huffs,  _I’m leaving, then._  
  
 _Sure._  
  
Dean grits his teeth but says nothing as he walks away, hands still in his pockets, as he trails the path that the moon has lit. The last time, he had just walked down this road a little to get back.  The times before that, Dean hadn’t really had the choice to stay or leave, but this time, it all seems a lot more in-control. Like someone is actually holding the reins on this one.  
  
Goosebumps rise all over Dean at the realisation, prickling at him and making him shudder, and he turns back to look for his brother, only to find that he’s gone.  
  
Dean sighs, and makes his way back to Bobby and Cas.  
  
0  
  
Pamela Barnes is  _hot_ , Dean decides, when he and Cas and Bobby enter her house, a couple of hours after Dean has woken up from his latest slumber. He’s still a little hurt at Sam’s words, though. They barely get to see each other, and that’s after a large interval of six months, and Dean had hoped that Sam wouldn’t be a bitch right now. But, apparently he’s pissed at something.  
  
Dean tries to remind himself that it’s probably not about him at all. Sam had probably just been having a bad day. Maybe Ruby had pissed him off, which is entirely possible, knowing how that skank could be. Dean has a few, very pointed memories of her.  
  
“Dean.” Castiel’s hand is in his, as they're sitting on the couch, and Pamela chuckles in her armchair.   
  
“Cute,” she says. She casts her eyes on each of them for a while, before leaning back against her seat. “So what are you boys here for?”  
  
“We need to find my brother,” Dean tells her.  
  
“How long has he been lost?”  
  
“Six months.”  
  
She raises an eyebrow. “And you’re only missing him now?”  
  
“No, I…” Dean looks down, licking his lip. “I kinda didn’t remember him.”  
  
“He has amnesia,” Bobby explains the next second, and Dean can see the slow rise of Pamela’s judgemental eyebrows come to an abrupt halt.  
  
“How come?” she asks him.  
  
“Some monster,” Bobby says. “We still gotta figure it out. Thought we’d find the kid first.”  
  
“Any semblance of an idea about where he might be?”  
  
“No,” Dean tells her. “I… we… kinda have this weird psychic connection, and I can talk to him in my dreams, but he won’t tell me where he is, because he feels like he’s being watched.”  
  
“He’s smart,” she replies between nods. “Okay, well, astral projection is out of question then, but I think I can use your subconscious connection with him.”  
  
“Fine,” Dean says. “Let’s get started.”  
  
She scratches her nose as she contemplates the situation, finally pushing her hands down on the armrests to stand up. “I’ll get my shit. We need something of your brother’s though.”  
  
“Got his shirt.”  
  
“Good. Come on in.” They stand up, and she turns to Castiel. “Humans only.”  
  
“I’m an angel,” he says. “If you know I’m not human, you should have sensed that vibe, too.”  
  
“I’m a psychic, not a goddamned connoisseur of the supernatural,” she says lightly. “And you kidding me about you guys? _Angels_?”  
  
Castiel just shrugs, apparently tired of explaining the existence of God and his kind, and follows her into the dining room.  
  
Pamela works quickly to set up the dining table as her altar. She spreads a black sheet, laden with sigils, and lights five black candles before reaching for a large bowl that she keeps at the centre of the table. She proceeds to switch off the lights around the room and take a chair. “All right, now, sit down.”  
  
Dean takes a seat next to Cas and touches Cas’s shin with his toes, grinning down at it. Pamela adjusts the candles and throws something into the bowl. The air immediately smells of chamomile, and Dean feels his shoulders relax as his mind calms down. Turning around, he sees Bobby lean back in his seat too, eyes slightly glassy, while Cas remains undisturbed and firm, shin still bumping against Dean’s toes.   
  
He moves his foot away from Cas’s leg and fixes his gaze on one of the flickering flames, watching the dark, hot wax melt and trail down the side of the candle. Pamela throws more ingredients into the bowl.  
  
“Okay,” she says, “I know you’re all relaxed, but I need you to take a deep breath.”  
  
They comply, breathing in the aroma from the candles and the chamomile, and Dean feels like his mind is entering a state of limbo, colours and lights flashing as his eyes grow heavy. He hears Pamela reach for something and before he knows it, he can feel the flannel of Sam’s shirt in his hand and Pamela’s hand, enclosing over his.  
  
“Another breath,” she says, and they obey. “Now, shut your eyes.”  
  
Everything spins like a Tilt-a-Whirl the moment Dean obeys her. Sounds are rushing past his ears, noises and colours and whispers and he’s running—running down a small, dark dirt road, the atmosphere around him swirling wildly like he’s on an acid trip.  
  
His stomach churns, and he shuts his eyes against all the movement, breathing through his mouth and waiting for it all to stop. He just stands where he is, hands on his ears until at last, the ground beneath him stabilises and he doesn’t feel like he’s rocking anymore.  
  
Dean opens his eyes and follows the now-stable dirt lane. Soon, he is walking down an unknown, narrow street. It’s twilight, just on the brink of dusk, and the last rays of the sun are fading. The early stars are already appearing in the sky, twinkling weakly.   
  
The street is dirty, emitting the stench of unclean toilets and rotten meat, but most importantly, sulphur, causing the hairs on the back of Dean’s neck to rise up. He stiffens, thinking of the implications of this: demons.  
  
His instincts prickle at him. He needs to find Sam.  
  
He stops next to a dumpster, only to hear a low, moaning sound from inside it. There is someone there. Not—  
  
No, not Sam.  
  
Not Sam, Dean convinces himself as he slowly opens the lid on the dumpster, his heart going crazy in his rib cage. When he peeks inside, there’s a short, balding man curled up in the small space, whimpering with his eyes shut.  
  
Dean swallows. “Hey,” he says. “Buddy?”  
  
The man abruptly opens his eyes and catches Dean’s, a leer appearing on his face. He is dirty, his clothes stained with blood, but the look he’s giving Dean drains all the sympathy from him.  
  
“Dean Winchester,” he hisses, “nice of you to drop by.”  
  
Dean narrows his eyes. “Who are you?”  
  
The man smirks as his eyes flash black. Dean grits his teeth, backing away from the demon as the fiend rises, standing in the filth inside the dumpster and still smirking at Dean, as though Dean is the one with his feet in a pile of rubbish. “You’ve come to look for little Sammy, haven’t you?” he asks Dean.  
  
“Mind your own business,” Dean snaps at him, trying to recollect the verses for the exorcism. He wishes he had Cas and the angel blade right now.  
  
“Well,” says the demon, holding on to the sides of the trash bin. “He’s the one who did this to me anyway,” he says. “He’s all buffed up these days, isn’t he? I’ve heard a rumour too. And he just proved to me that it’s not really a rumour—but the truth!” The demon chuckles, breath wheezing slightly with the effort.  
  
He is obviously not worth wasting his time over.  
  
“ _Exorcizamus te_ ,” Dean begins, “ _omnis immundus spiritus—_ ”  
  
“He’s drinking that bitch,” the demon spits at Dean. “He’s drinking her every day. I felt it in him.”  
  
Dean grins at the demon’s crap. “ _Omnis satanica potestas, omnis—_ ”  
  
Suddenly, he’s not in the dirty alley anymore. He’s standing on the landing of a narrow staircase of some sort and before him, there’s a window. He can hear more moans from inside, and these ones aren’t like the last. Dean is clutching onto the rails of the stairs, almost leaving, when he hears it.  
  
“Oh, Sam…”  
  
 _What?_  
  
Dean is pressing his hands against the glass panes on the window, knocking. “Sammy?”  
  
Nobody seems to have heard him. Dean swallows. He doesn’t want to see Sam like this: this is one aspect of his brother he doesn’t want to know.  
  
“Hold still, Ruby,” Sam says from the inside, his tone low. Dean’s heart sinks. Yes, Sam did hint at this, but really? Ruby?  
  
“Quickly.” Ruby seems to be impatient, although she isn’t gasping or moaning anymore.  
  
“Give me a minute,” Sam says in reply to that, and there is a pause before Ruby gasps.  
  
“Oh, that’s right,” she whispers, and Dean almost doesn’t hear it. There’s a weird, sucking sound, and Dean cringes as Ruby gasps again. “We’re so fucking after this…” she says, letting out a deep-throated laugh.  
  
Dean raises an eyebrow as Sam talks agitatedly. “Will you hold still?”  
  
Ruby doesn’t reply to that. There’s silence, except for the sucking, and Dean looks at the breach in the curtains and wonders if he should peek, feeling like a voyeur at the mere thought. But… Sam and Ruby obviously aren’t doing the dirty…   
  
 _He’s drinking that bitch. He’s drinking her every day. I felt it in him._ That's what the demon from the dumpster had said.  
  
What had he meant by that? Was he telling the truth?  
  
“You know,” Ruby says, “I’m sorry about the other day. I shouldn’t have left like that.” She pauses. “I just—I wanted to show you that you need this to get back to Dean. And I know he might not approve, Sam, but this is the best way.”  
  
The sucking stops abruptly, and Sam speaks. “I don’t want to lie to him.”  
  
“I know, but maybe just wait before you tell him?”  
  
A laugh. “He’ll disown me if he knows.”  
  
“He won’t.”  
  
“You wanna bet?” Sam’s voice is light, but Dean can hear the despair in it. “He never meant for me to take this path, Ruby.”  
  
“I know,” she says. “But if you hadn’t, he wouldn’t know where you are right now. You’re the one who controls those dreams he’s having, who can make them happen, and that wouldn’t be possible if it weren’t for the demon blood.”  
  
“He won’t look at it that way. He’d rather we both die, than…” Sam takes a deep breath, “you know…”  
  
“I know. But it’s just demon blood, Sam. It’s not like you didn’t already have it in you. Why question its morality then?”  
  
“He doesn’t know.”  
  
“About the—?”  
  
“Azazel told me the day I died in Cold Oak, Ruby. About the demon blood. I didn’t tell Dean, because…” Sam just trails away.  
  
“Hey,” Ruby says, “it’s because he’s done so much for you. He’s always been there for you and he’s the most important person in your life and you don’t wanna hurt him.” She pauses. “Am I right?”  
  
Sam doesn’t reply, and Ruby continues, “You think he might hate you if he finds out, and you can’t bear to think of it.”  
  
“Where’s the knife?”  
  
“Sam—”  
  
“The blood’s clotted here, I need to make another cut.”  
  
“Sam, look at me,” Ruby says softly. “He won’t hate you. Maybe you shouldn’t tell him that you’re actually drinking demon blood too, but he won’t hate you for what Azazel did to you when you were a baby.”  
  
There is no reply, just a grunt from Ruby, and the sucking restarts. Dean clenches his jaw. This isn’t making sense at all. Drinking demon blood? Is that a euphemism for something?  
  
Steeling himself, Dean creeps sideways towards the gap in the curtains. He can see a bed first, and when he moves closer, he sees a brunette woman, lying diagonally across the bed while Sam is slanted over her forearm, his lips on her skin. Dean frowns, disgusted and ready to book when he sees something stream down the woman’s light skin, onto the bedspread, dripping over the thin cloth in a crimson spot.  
  
It is blood.  
  
And Dean’s bracing himself, preparing to go inside, because what the fuck, Sammy?  
  
Ruby looks up, and her eyes narrow and flash black.  
  
The heat that Dean feels, along with the force of being pushed away, throws him from the narrow landing, and he’s falling… falling, until…  
  
“Good to see that you’re back, Scruffy.”  
  
Dean opens his eyes to find himself on Pamela’s floor, three pairs of eyes looking at him from above.  
  
He swallows, his head spinning with grogginess. “What did I miss?”


	12. Chapter 12

 

  
  


  
Sam swallows down the last of the salty blood, panting as he puts his head up, and lets go of Ruby. The thick, coppery liquid is already settling in his senses, smoothing out the edges, and Sam loves the feel of raw power in him as he climbs off the bed and takes the chair next to it. He thinks he saw movement beyond the curtained window, but when he reaches to open the drapes, there’s no one.  
  
He licks his lip and casts a glance at Ruby, who is sheathing her knife again. “Did you see that?”  
  
“What?” she asks him.  
  
“I thought someone was watching us.”  _I thought Dean was watching us._ Sam doesn’t know why he feels that way, but something in his gut says that it was Dean.  
  
“No, Sam, I’m pretty sure no one was there. We’d have known.”  
  
And it’s true. If Dean had been watching, if he’d found out… Sam shudders. It’s not like Dean to discover something like this and quietly slink away, anyway. He’d have jumped in and punched Sam on the nose in Tminus 10.   
  
Yeah, he’d definitely have said something.  
  
Sam feels relief at the reassurance of his own mind. He knows what Ruby is saying, but Dean can’t find out. Not yet. Not until Sam learns how to not be an asshole to his brother after not seeing him for six months.  
  
He knows that Dean is wounded from when they’d met last time, and he knows that the next time they see each other Dean will be ready to forgive. And then he’ll lie to Dean again about the demon blood, and Ruby, and about everything else…  
  
“What are you thinking?” Ruby has her eyes trained on Sam as she fiddles with the bedcover, her head resting on her palm while she’s propped up on one elbow.   
  
Sam stands up and walks to the window.  “Why didn’t you tell me about the seals?” he asks her. “That Lucifer will walk free if they’re broken? Is Lilith really trying to break them all?”  
  
“She is. And the seals have nothing to do with us. We just need to kill the bitch. Stopping every seal would be tedious. She’s the one breaking them anyway, so it’s best to just nip it in the bud.”  
  
“Is that why you didn’t tell me? Because it has nothing to do with us?”  
  
“Yeah.” Ruby is frowning at him. “You’re doubting me again, aren’t you?” She huffs. “Nice.”  
  
“I’m not—” he clears his throat, “Are you sure it’s Dean who’s with Lilith? He is with Bobby, after all. The  _real_  Bobby, who didn’t turn into a zombie.”  
  
“Mind games,” Ruby says, waving her hand. “This is getting boring, Sam, how many times do I have to tell you?” She gets off the bed and advances towards him. “If you were the one in trouble right now, do you think you could have used your powers? On the demons? For tapping into Dean’s subconscious?”  
  
“I guess not…”  
  
“Exactly.” Her voice softens. “I’ve never let you down, right? Just trust me on this. I’ll have Dean back for you, okay?”  
  
He swallows, and looks at the floor between them as he nods. “Yeah”  


 

  
  
“Give me your hand.”  
  
“I’m not volunteering to take another free-fall lesson.”  
  
Pamela raises an eyebrow. “Seriously? You’re gonna act like an asshole just because you fell?”  
  
Dean contemplates her and grumbles to himself before offering her his hand. His mood has been ruined, really, by everything he saw and witnessed—by what he knows Sammy is doing right now because fucking Ruby is one thing, but drinking her blood?  
  
“You have to relax, Dean,” Pamela tells him in a soft voice, throwing some ingredients into her bowl again. “This spell won’t work if your mind is weakened.”  
  
“What the hell kinda stupid spell is this anyway?”  
  
“Like I said, I’m trying to find Sam through your subconscious,” she says, “since you said you two are connected. I explained even before I sent you.”  
  
Dean looks at their connected hands. “So… what I saw is really happening out there to Sammy?” God, what wouldn’t he give to have this turn out to be a stupid dream?   
  
She bites her lip. “The subconscious mind is usually a reflection of a person’s deepest, darkest secrets and memories. Or even the biggest desires. It’s how we get to know so much when we hypnotise, you know? So… whatever you saw there… it’s Sam’s deepest self, reflected back, and it’s the purest possible way you can see him in right now.” She pauses. “Why?”  
  
“Nothing,” he says. “Just…” He tugs at her hand. “Go ahead.”  
  
“You sure?”  
  
“More than ever.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
Pamela starts to chant, her free hand still tossing things into the bowl, while Dean works on relaxing his shoulders and shutting his eyes, and really, really not thinking about Sammy. But he can see his brother again and again, drinking Ruby’s blood. He can hear them talk, and he can see the dumpster demon’s leer. At that last thought, Dean suddenly just wants to get out of here and find Sammy now and pull him out of all this crap because obviously, obviously the kid has no clue what he’s doing. Right? That should be it.  
  
Sam isn’t the kind to put a toe outside of what’s moral. He could be obsessive, but he isn’t… he isn’t a monster.  
  
Dean convinces himself with this, feeling warmth crowd his limbs. It grows upwards and inwards towards the center of his body, and he’s squirming now, because it’s hot. It’s really fucking hot. If he could just loosen his shirt…  
  
Before he knows it, Pamela is nudging his arm. “Dean?”  
  
Dean opens his eyes with a start and is relieved to find himself still seated this time. Pamela, however, doesn’t look too happy, as she lights a match and throws it into the spell bowl, muttering a chant under her breath. A half-hearted flame rises, flickers and dies, and Pamela’s mouth is in a thin line at the end of it.  
  
Dean sighs, knowing it’s bad news, and braces himself. “What is it?”  
  
Pamela shakes her head, her short hair rippling a little as she continues to look into the fire. “Sam is surrounded by a lot of negativity,” she says. “He’s in danger.”  
  
Dean’s heart pounces to his throat, jaw dropping, and he swallows. “What?”  
  
“I don’t know what exactly is wrong,” she says, “but wherever he is, he’s not safe.”  
  
“And where is he?”  
  
“I don’t know.” Pamela looks grim as she says it. “I don’t know, Dean. Sam is too well-hidden from all of us. And there’s a lot of bad magic around him, and it’s not looking good. You have to start looking for him  _now_. And, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to find him the hard way.”  
  
0  
  
“The hard way,” Dean scoffs, as he sits on the bed at his and Castiel’s motel room.   
  
They have left Pamela’s house, but Bobby isn’t keen on Castiel zapping them back. Though Bobby is in no real danger, Dean wants to hold on to whatever he has, so they decided to hotwire a car back, and are now resting for the night at a motel.   
  
“Sammy seems okay,” Dean tells Cas for the umpteenth time that day. “I’m telling you—he was just fine in the dream, and even… what I saw… Cas, he was doing weird things, but he was all right, and he wasn’t incapacitated or anything.”  
  
“Things are often different from what they seem, Dean. And Pamela told you. You saw his subconscious. Not reality. Things might be different for real.”  
  
“Yeah, I get that. But so drastically?”  
  
“It is possible.”  
  
“Do you really think so?”  
  
Castiel doesn’t reply to that. Instead, he gets up and moves over to the window and stares outside, maintaining the silence for a while. “I never considered this,” he says at long last.  
  
“What?”  
  
“What was your brother doing when you saw him today, Dean?”  
  
Dean stares at Cas’s back and clears his throat. “I can’t tell you.”  
  
Cas turns around, blue eyes full of worry, as he places a hand on the chest of drawers that stands beside the window. “Did it—” he licks his lip, and Dean suddenly has the urge to grab him and undress him and forget everything about what he saw, even if it’s temporary. Cas takes a step forward. “Did it have something to do with demon blood?”  
  
Dean’s heart misses a beat. “Wh-what?”  
  
“Sorry. I shouldn’t assume.” Cas is turning away, when Dean swallows and speaks.  
  
“How do you know?”  
  
Castiel’s eyes widen when they find Dean’s. “So it’s true.”  
  
“Y-Yeah… Cas…” Dean’s voice is almost down to a whisper. “Cas, I know it was subconscious him or whatever but... but I saw him… I saw him drink, and—”  
  
“Please calm down.” Cas is suddenly by Dean’s side, hand on his shoulder, squeezing. “Dean…”  
  
“How do you know?” Dean asks him, voice breaking.  
  
“It was always in his destiny.” Castiel looks apologetic. “When your mother was killed by Azazel, she actually fell victim to interrupting him while he was inoculating Sam with demon blood. And Azazel succeeded in his operation that night.”  
  
“S-so Sammy has demon blood in him?”  
  
“I’m afraid so, Dean.”  
  
“Why was he drinking it, then? What’s the need for that? Why would he do that?”  
  
“Sam’s introduction to demon blood at an early age left him with powers,” Castiel explains, “and I think you know. So in theory, if he ingests more, his powers will manifest better, and he’ll be able to stretch his abilities beyond expectations.” He takes a deep breath. “But now that you saw him, I don’t think it’s just a theory.”  
  
“And can he control dreams? The ones I’ve been having of him? Can he just decide on when I get them and when I don’t?”  
  
Castiel hesitates. “It is possible.”  
  
Dean doesn’t even realise that his knees are buckling until Castiel grips his arm and lowers him onto the bed, slowly. Dean feels the mattress hit him gently but he sits there, too tired to move, too overwhelmed to think. Cas’s weight dips the mattress again, and Dean feels a warm hand on his cheek.  
  
“Go to sleep, Dean,” Castiel says. “You can meet him and talk to him. It might give you peace to do so.”  
  
“I don’t wanna talk to him.”  
  
“Don’t say that,” Cas’s voice is gentle as he tugs on Dean, making him lie down, and reaching over to pull his boots off his feet. Once the socks are off, he reaches over to unbutton Dean’s shirt.   
  
“Sam has always been there, Dean,” he says. “He’s always been with you, physically, and then in your mind, even when you couldn’t remember him anymore. You were itching to meet him a whole month after you saw him that one time in your dream.” He’s removed the shirt now, and his hands are working on Dean’s jeans. “Everything you do, Dean, everything you’ve been doing, is for him. You shouldn’t stop now. Not because of something you saw.”  
  
Dean doesn’t reply, and Cas tugs off the pants and drops them, moving in to lie down beside Dean.  
  
Dean turns to him. “You think Sammy can’t help it? The demon blood?”  
  
“I’m not sure why he’s drinking it.”  
  
“He knows he’s wrong, Cas.”  
  
Cas cards a hand through Dean's hair. “From what I’ve heard of your history, it doesn’t seem to matter to either of you when it comes to each other. There’s no right or wrong. Will you trust that Sam is probably doing this with that mentality? When you know that he’s been hidden well enough by Lilith or whatever those dark forces are, so well that my garrison couldn’t find him?”  
  
Dean doesn’t know where Cas learned all that forgiveness as his heart grows warm. He still feels the anger, though. He still feels the disappointment.  
  
“I wanna—I wanna kill him, Cas. That fucker…  _how could he_?”  
  
Castiel doesn’t reply to that, and Dean wraps a leg around both of Cas’s, moving to bury his face in his shoulder. Cas doesn’t react at first, like he seldom reacts to Dean touching him, but then he pulls Dean towards him. Dean lets out a small chuckle. When it comes to human things, it’s like the message reaches Cas’s brain late. He always waits for a bit before reacting to anything, as though he’s calculating the possibilities in his head.    
  
Which, to be honest, he probably is.   
  
“You’re such a nerd,” Dean says quietly, his voice muffled into Cas’s trenchcoat, although Cas doesn’t react to it. “But you’re kinda hot.” Dean extracts his face from Castiel’s trenchcoat and connects lips with him, kissing him softly, just the way Cas is kissing him back. He feels Cas’s hands move to the back of his neck, cupping it as they kiss, lips moving faster, and Dean parting his slightly to let Cas in.  
  
Cas rakes a hand through Dean’s hair and moves from his lips to kiss his forehead gently. “We will figure this out, Dean,” he says. “But most importantly, it’s  _you_  who will figure it out.” He presses his lips to Dean’s forehead. “I think you should give Sam a chance. You did give me a chance, you know. And he’s your brother. Maybe you should give him an opportunity to tell you the truth, like you did for me.”  
  
Dean smiles sadly and holds on to Cas for dear life, sighing as Cas rubs his back, loosening his taut muscles, and strokes his hair, until he falls asleep wrapped up in the warmth of his angel.

 

  
Sam chews on  his nails as he waits for Dean. His conversation with Ruby today unnerved him some, and all he’s looking for is Dean. Dean—who knows nothing (and it’s best he doesn’t), but has always been there for Sam. And he’s never complained, never… and what is Sam doing to his brother?  
  
A gust of wind blows, and Sam knows that Dean is here. He is eager now, he wants to know what Bobby thinks and if Bobby will forgive him and convince Dean to do so too.   
  
Dean isn’t smiling when he walks down the path this time. Sam soothes the atmosphere, is dimming the moon and hoping Dean will relax, when the fucking ravens caw. Sam has every mind to shoot the damned creatures but can’t, in case Lilith really has Dean after all.  
  
Dean’s face is still serious when he seats himself next to Sam. Sam smiles at him, but it’s not reciprocated.  _Hey,_  he says softly.  
  
_Hey._  
  
_You okay?_  
  
Dean shrugs.  _Long day._  
  
_You and Bobby find something?_  
  
_We did,_ Dean says _. We even went to this psychic—Pamela. She tried to get to you._  
  
_Did she?_ Sam pauses. _I am where I think I am, right?_  
  
Dean sighs.  _No… she can’t track you. But…_  
  
_What?_  
  
Dean looks into Sam’s eyes.  _You’re in trouble, man. She’s saying that someone’s deliberately hidden you, and it’s a big fugly doing it. Real dark magic._  
  
Sam raises an eyebrow.  _I feel okay, Dean_.  
  
_Yeah, and remember when we couldn’t trust even my instincts on that?_  Dean asks him, and Sam swallows.  _Listen_ , he continues,  _Bobby reckons that whatever amnesia curse happened before I died, it’s limited to me. It was aimed towards erasing my identity and my memories. I know the police told me that the grave Brenda found me in was for two people, and I know someone pulled you out before I was found. I don’t know about you, but to me it’s looking like someone was really planning this shit, you know?_ He pauses. _You mingling with the right crowd, Sammy? You sure about Ruby?_  
  
_I d-don’t—_  Sam stammers for a second, staring at Dean because it’s almost like Dean doesn’t approve. But… but how would he know? How could he even figure it out?  
  
No, no. Sam is overthinking this. He feels the guilt weighing in from everything that he and Ruby have been doing, and he wants to tell Dean,  _fuck_ , he wants to tell Dean so badly, but Dean will fucking hate him for this. He needs every moment with his brother right now. He needs to fight all of this, and Lilith. Dean is the only one who can make Sam feel even relatively strong enough to do what he has to.  
  
He also knows that he might not survive this war he’s been preparing for—the war that he will be fighting against Lilith, and Sam doesn’t want to die, knowing that Dean hates him.  
  
_Sammy,_  Dean whispers. He looks remorseful.  _You ain’t hiding something from me, are you?_  
  
_N-No, Dean…_  Sam opens and closes his mouth twice.  _I…_    
  
_I just want you to be okay_ , Dean tells him.  _And whatever battle you’re fighting, you can tell me. We’ll do it together._  
  
_I’m okay, Dean_ , Sam replies softly _. I’m more than okay, man,_  he says, smiling.  _Gosh, dude, you were gone six fucking months, and now…? I’m more than okay._  
  
**You’re here and I’m okay,**  he means to say, but he doesn’t.  
  
Dean takes a moment to process the words, and he nods.  _Okay._  
  
They sit like that for a while. Dean suddenly chuckles.  ** _And I walk these streets_** _,_  he sings, without preamble. Sam squints at his brother, because, really, what the fuck?   
  
Dean’s voice is cracking and he’s very off-key, but he keeps singing as Sam looks at him incredulously.  ** _A loaded six-string on my back!_**  
  
_Bon Jovi?!_  Sam asks him, and Dean shrugs.  
  
_Bon Jovi rocks, dude, on occasion,_ he tells Sam, and continues singing, hitting a high note that Sam feels might tear his voice box.   
  
**_I play for keeps_**  
**_‘Cause I might not make it back._**  
  
_Come on,_  he says, nudging Sam.  ** _I’ve been everywhere!_**  
  
**_Ohhh yeaaahhh,_**  Sam croons, and Dean gives him a triumphant chuckle.  
  
**_And still I’m standing tall,_**  they sing together,   
  
**_I’ve seen a million faces_**  
**_And I’ve rocked them all._**  
  
They sing, Sam unable to stop himself from laughing as tears crowd his eyes, and he tries not to think of Ruby, his mind yelling betrayal at him. He’s not betraying Dean. He would never, ever do that. No. Whatever he’s doing, it’s for both of their benefit. It’s for both of them.  
  
**_Dead or aliiive,_**  Dean sings, cuffing at Sam’s sleeve. Sam joins him, so that both of them are singing at the top of their voices.  
  
**_Dead or alive_**  
  
**_Dead or aliiiive_**  
  
**_Dead or a-l-i-v-e…_**  
  
They finish the song, each panting a little from the effort of singing the high notes, and Dean looks sadly at Sam before reaching up and ruffling his hair.  _Take care of yourself, Sammy._    
  
Sam shifts closer to his brother and bumps a shoulder against his.  _Tell me about Cas._  
  
_You already know._  
  
_Not everything._  
  
_So what do you really want to know?_  
  
_Like I said, Dean, everything._  
  
Dean laughs, his voice rumbling and throaty.  _Such a girl,_  he says.  
  
_Like that’s a bad thing._  
  
Dean turns around to look at him weirdly, but doesn’t say anything. He sighs.  _What do I tell you, man? Cas is a fucking nerd. A fucking short, nerdy dude with wings._  Dean grows slightly pink, and Sam smiles at the adoration that’s sparkling through his brother’s eyes. He can feel his strength sliding, and soon, Dean will have to go back but in the meantime, they’ll take what they can get.  
  
Sam just hopes that the angel his brother is in love with is real.

 

  


  
Cas is still clutching Dean when he wakes up with a start and in a minute, everything comes back with a feather-light touch on his forehead. Dean realises that Cas’s arms are around him, pulling him close as he stares up at the dark ceiling.  
  
“Did you talk?” Cas asks him in his ear.  
  
“Yeah,” Dean replies. The bedcovers rustle underneath him as Cas snuggles in some more. Dean swallows. “I asked him, Cas, but he lied to me.”  
  
“Dean…”  
  
“Don’t say it.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“That he’s too far gone,” Dean whispers, tears welling up in his eyes. Because, really, what is Sammy doing?    
  
“He’ll come back,” Dean says again, to no one in particular. “It’s a phase. Sammy’s always been conscious of what he’s doing. He’ll come back.” Dean turns around and buries his face into Cas’s shoulder. “Right?” he finally adds, voice breaking.  
  
Cas is comfortably toasty against him, and his lips are gentle when they land on Dean’s head. “Right,” he agrees with Dean, his hand making slow, circular motions on Dean’s back.  
  
Dean wonders when Cas learned to lie so well, although, the next moment, he decides he just wants to believe it all.  
  


 

  
  
  
“He knows something is up.”  
  
Sam is chewing at his nail again as he paces the living room, Ruby lounging against the couch and disinterestedly flicking through a lore book. Sam, irritated by the rustle of paper, rounds on her, fists clenching.  
  
“Dammit, Ruby, are you even listening?”  
  
“I am, Sam,” she says, “and I’m in a good mind to walk out right now. You know why?”  
  
Sam doesn’t reply as Ruby shuts the book and puts it on the coffee table. “Because you keep  _whining_ ,” she spits at him.  
  
“This is serious!”  
  
“I am aware, thank you very much.”  
  
“Ruby, if there’s one person who can’t know about this, it’s my brother.”  _Because, after taking this path to get him back, I can’t lose him because of this._  
  
“So where is Dean right now?” Ruby asks him. “Did he tell you?”  
  
“Yeah. He’d gone to see a psychic. With Bobby. He didn’t give me the exact location, obviously. And he was acting cagey and I think he knows.”  
  
“Him being cagey doesn’t prove anything,” Ruby sighs. “What else did he find out?”  
  
“That I’m surrounded by extreme negative energy.”  
  
“Well, duh,” Ruby shrugs, gesturing to herself. “Although I suppose  _you_  could take some credit for that too.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“What do you think drinking all that blood does to you? Make you shit fairy dust?”  
  
“No… I…” Dean had said that Pamela sensed evil, all right. But it had never occurred to Sam that part of the evil was him.  
  
“Sam, come on, you can’t honestly say you’re surprised,” says Ruby. “I mean, wasn’t it obvious you were pushing the line on your crappy human morality? You’re doing a good thing, though. You know you are.”  
  
“Y-yeah… it’s just…”  
  
“I’m getting tired of this.” Ruby crosses her arms over her chest and glares at him. “I’m tired of your fucking vacillations and your Dean issues and your questions about morality. I told you from the jump what this would involve, and  _you_ agreed, and ever since, you’ve been pestering me about this entire deal.”  
  
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Sam snaps at her. “You pushed me into this!”  
  
She clenches her jaw. “Okay, then,” she says. “Since I pushed you into it, I’m going to leave. Like the last time, give me a call when you grow a pair, Sam. Until then, you can use what remains of your mojo to visit Dean… or exorcise demons, I don’t care. I don’t want to be here to watch you run yourself into the ground anymore.”  
  
Sam doesn’t say anything; he just watches as Ruby collects her things and walks out of the door. Last time that she’d done this, he had had a hard time coping without the demon blood. After that he’d persuaded her to give him some in a flask a couple of days ago, and chanted a spell so it wouldn’t clot or spoil. He has the flask stored inside, still full of blood, and by the time he’s gone through that, he’ll find Dean and let go of this demon blood crap for good.   
  
That’s Sam’s promise to himself.  


 

  
  
  
The next morning, Cas joins Dean in the shower.  
  
Cas is never particularly horny, although he does enjoy the sex, and Dean is quite surprised by the gesture, breathing softly when Cas twirls arms around his middle, placing his chin on Dean’s shoulder.  
  
“Hey,” Dean mutters, sudsy hand going down to rest over Cas’s. Last night had not been easy and with the skyrocketing worry and nightmares about Sam, Cas has been Dean’s only solace.  
  
Cas kisses his neck. “I thought you would enjoy a surprise.”  
  
Dean turns around to him. “Shower sex? Hell yeah!” He chuckles when Cas kisses his mouth, and goes down from there, the warm water raining down on them in soothing droplets.  
  
Cas is on his knees, hands gripping at Dean’s hips as Dean braces one hand on the tiled wall behind him and lays one on Cas’s head. He can feel Cas’s hands, fingers, touching and stroking, over his slit, the head, the shaft. Soft lips enclose him, tongue working on him, smooth and rough all at once.  
  
It’s tantalising, electricity crackling through every ending. Dean thrusts, feeling Cas’s hot breath on him, his fingers dipping into warm, wet skin. He rocks his hips forward, again and again, and Cas strokes, licks and hums, making Dean hiss and gyrate, and he’s coming, he’s  _fucking coming_ … and…  
  
“Fuck!” Dean moans as he spurts into Cas’s mouth.  
  
He shuts off the shower and lets Cas stand up so he can press him against the wall, pushing back Cas’s damp hair and kissing him. When they separate, Dean bends over to cross his hands under Cas’s knees, hoisting him up so Cas’s legs are encircling his waist. He kisses Cas again, on the mouth, and Cas returns the kiss, before burying his lips in Dean’s neck.  
  
They’re in the room, and Dean lays Cas on the bed, still wet, before crawling over the sheets to him. He spreads Cas’s legs apart and goes down to rim him. Cas gasps, shuddering everywhere, and Dean surfaces, fumbling with the lube on the nightstand. He squirts copious amounts into Cas and on his fingers, sliding one into him and then another. He scissors, earns a hiss from Cas, and does it again to feel him relax. Dean lubes himself next and gets down, folding over Cas, letting Cas’s legs circle him again.  
  
Cas’s hard-on is poking against Dean’s belly when he thrusts, and pumps again and again, Cas grunting and moaning and panting, fingernails digging crescents into Dean’s back. It sends tingles through him. Cas is so fucking  _hot_  under him, his breath tickling Dean’s neck, eyes half-mast, sweat trailing down his face… and Dean can feel it mounting, can feel it coming on, until…  
  
Cas gasps, and climaxes all over Dean, and Dean thrusts again, his whole body sweaty, until he’s coming too, warm and damp inside Cas. He pants, gets himself out and slumps over, feeling Cas’s lips against his temples and his hands around him, protecting him, hugging him. And loving him. He thinks he saw it coming, and isn’t surprised when Cas’s lips touch his ear.  
  
“I love you, Dean.”  
  
Dean listens to him, hums in response, and lets those words carry some peace into him.  
  


 

  
  
  
_Ruby helps, you know_.  _She’s saved my life before. And she’s trustworthy._  
  
Dean squints at Sam.  _Why are you telling me this?_  
  
_Because I know you don’t like her._  
  
_She’s a demon_ , Dean says.  _Of course I don’t like her._  
  
_You say all the angels are dicks_ , Sam counters,  _but I don’t question Cas._  
  
_You don’t know Cas._  
  
_And you don’t know Ruby._  
  
Dean rubs a hand against his temple.  _Let’s not talk about this, Sam, it’s giving me a freaking headache._  He reaches for his pocket and draws out a piece of cloth, cut out from one of his plaid shirts.  _Will this transfer to the real world?_  
  
_I hope,_  Sam says, as he takes the cloth from Dean. He’s found out about the spell that Pamela tried to track him with, and he’s going to try and find Dean with it.  
  
_If it doesn’t, stay where you are. We’ll come to get you._  
  
_You couldn’t find me,_ Sam says _. Maybe I should try._  
  
_Yeah, but I don’t even exist wherever you are._  
  
_I’m pretty sure we’re both in the same place, only well-hidden,_ Sam theorises. He pauses and eyes the soft cloth, rubbing it between his fingers. _We’ll find out anyway._  
  
_All I’m saying, Sam,_ Dean presses _, is that I’ve got Bobby, Pamela and Cas and—_  
  
_Look,_  Sam says,  _someone’s playing really big mind games with us right now. Don’t trust what you see. We’ve only gotta trust each other with this._  
  
_You just said you trust Ruby._  
  
_Not with something this big,_ Sam says. _I’m getting her help, but I’m not relying on her to be a backup. I’ve been around four months longer than you have—in this world, or in Lilith’s trick reality or whatever. I can navigate myself around real and unreal. You’ve gotta trust me on this._  
  
Dean’s mouth tightens, eyebrows coming together, and Sam looks at him carefully.  _Dean, what?_  
  
Dean lets out a small cough.  _Nothing._  
  
_Something you wanna tell me?_  
  
His brother shakes his head and stares at the swings. He seems distant and stiff, and a little upset about something. Sam observes him for another moment before nudging his brother with an elbow.  _Hey,_  he says.  _You okay? Cas bothering you or something?_  
  
_Cas is fine._  
  
_Then what is it?_  Sam leans over, trying to meet eyes with his brother.  _You can tell me, man._  
  
Dean contemplates for a moment.  _Why did you pick this place?_  
  
_What place?_  
  
_This…_  Dean gestures to the playground and the path behind _. This was one of the towns we stayed at as kids. One of the better ones._  
  
_Yeah,_  Sam says cautiously, feeling a prickling at the back of his neck because how does Dean know that Sam controls these dreams?  
  
_I heard you,_  Dean says.  _Heck, I saw you too._  
  
_Where?_  
  
_At your place._  Dean’s eyes seem greener when they come to meet Sam’s.  _You were with Ruby. You were talking, and then you…_  Dean pauses.  _You drank her blood, and I saw it, okay?_  
  
Sam swallows, bile rising up his throat. So Dean does know it all. And that day—that particular day, when his instincts had been pulling at him—there had been someone watching them. Dean. Oh, fuck.   
  
_It was my dying wish, remember?_  Dean says.  _That I didn’t want you to go down that path?_  
  
_Dean, I—_  
  
_You’re drinking demon blood, Sam,_  Dean snaps at him,  _does nothing about that feel wrong to you?!_  
  
_I’m just doing what works._  
  
_Yeah?_  
  
_The blood helps me connect with you,_  Sam says.  _And it’s making me powerful enough to kill Lilith! Look, you were gone and I was lost in this fucking La-la-land or curse or whatever it is that Lilith has done and I turned to the only thing that could help me. What was I supposed to do?_  
  
_You weren’t supposed to become a fucking vampire!_  Dean says harshly, standing up.  
  
_Dean—_  
  
_Forget it, Sam, I’m leaving. You can end this dream or whatever it is._  
  
_I don’t—I—_  
  
_Oh, don’t bullshit me,_  Dean scoffs _. I heard everything, okay? Everything. These aren’t dreams for you. You’re controlling them. I know._  
  
_Will you listen to me?_  
  
Dean starts to walk out of the playground, and Sam feels his eyes burn with tears _. Dean, please—_  
  
Dean doesn’t listen to him, though; he just keeps walking back and out until, with a jolt, Sam pulls back too, out of his psychic reality of whatever that place is. The too-bright light of his lamp hits him harshly in his eyes and he has to shut them for a moment. He had hoped Dean wouldn’t know. He had hoped Dean wouldn’t find out because this is just a temporary thing, and Sam won’t ever do this again, once he’s finished this last battle. Dean doesn’t get it, and he never will. Sam will never be able to let Dean know that he’s on this path because of what Dean means to him—because of how badly he wants to prove himself to his brother.  
  
Maybe Dean should just hang out with Cas, after all. Maybe that’s what will keep everything at peace. Dean thinks that Sam never wanted to be part of the family anyway. That he never wanted to be Dean’s brother.  
  
If only Dean knew what a lie that is.  


 

**00000000000000**


	13. Chapter 13

 

**Book Four**

  


 

  
  


  
  
There is darkness when he startles awake, and he realises he’s on a floor somewhere. It’s cold and hard below him and he tries to curl up, to fold his arms around himself, trying to remember how he got here. But his memory fails him, tuning in and out like bad radio, and there’s a chuckle and a clap of hands, causing sharp pain in his head as a stream of memories start flooding in.  
  
His name is Dean Winchester, and—  
  
“Cas!” Dean exclaims hoarsely, sitting up. “Cas?”  
  
There’s another clap and a burst of light all around Dean, so intense that he has to shield his eyes. It’s hot and cold, and Dean feels something akin to electricity pass through his body as he's hauled to his feet.  
  
The light fades away, and a man speaks. “So here we are, with our tragic lover boys.”  
  
He opens his eyes to see a tall, balding man in a suit, smirking at him. There is a clinking from the other side and Dean turns, spotting Cas shackled to a wall and gagged.   
  
“Don’t worry about him,” Baldy says as Dean tears his eyes away from his angel. “He’ll survive this.”  
  
Dean flashes a glare. “Who the fuck are you?”  
  
Baldy smirks, grin deepening. “I’m Zachariah. Castiel’s superior. A little bird told me that you two are being naughty, and I’m here to give you your… well,  _detention_.”  
  
“Screw you,” Dean spits at him.  
  
“Isn’t Castiel enough for that insatiable penis that you possess?” Zachariah scoffs.  
  
“This is my private life with Cas, and Cas’s private life with me,” Dean replies, arms crossing over his chest. “It’s got nothing to do with you.”  
  
“Well, you can say that,” Zachariah steps forward, “except, it has got everything to do with me. We have a battle going on here, and our righteous man is sodomising the angel we sent to rescue him.”  
  
“I’m not—” Dean grits his teeth, “we are going after the seals like you douchebags told us to. What is your problem, huh?”  
  
“My problem, Dean,” Zachariah says menacingly, advancing on him some more, “is that one of my soldiers there is going and experimenting with the Plutchik’s Chart of emotions, and it’s compromising his ability to fight and we can’t have that from an angel.”  
  
“So Cas is not allowed to have emotions? He’s not allowed to think for himself?”  
  
“He’s not allowed to love,” says Zachariah. “And let me tell you, Dean, we have put in a lot of effort for you and that abomination of a man who you call your brother.”  
  
“Shut your mouth.”  
  
“You don’t know what your little Sammy can do, do you?” Zachariah asks him, face triumphant. “Castiel here knows everything. Has he even told you?”  
  
“He’s told me. You don’t have to worry about it.”  
  
“Is that so?”  
  
“Like I said, mind your own business.”  
  
“That’s what I’m doing,” Zachariah replies through gritted teeth. “And I’m here to get my work done.”  
  
“And what are you going to do, Baldy, steal our hair?” Dean asks him, smirking.    
  
“No,” says Zachariah simply. “I’m going to keep you here, right here, for the next few seals that Lilith is bound to break. And in the meantime, Castiel will be under heavy guard in Heaven. Giving you freedom isn’t an option, obviously, and I should have realised... especially as you’re known for humping anything that moves.”  
  
“Aww, come on,” Dean leers. “I don’t do animals, Baldy.”  
  
Zachariah’s eyes are glinting with malice as he takes another step farther. Dean swallows and rocks back, hitting the wall. “You’re nothing but a filthy maggot,” he hisses, “and if you weren’t so important to the Big Picture, you’d still be rotting in Hell, so get off that high horse, Dean Winchester.”  
  
Dean is staring at Zachariah, memories of Hell flashing through his mind, when Zachariah moves over to Castiel, and with a whoosh of wings, they’re both gone.  


 

  
Sam licks the last droplet of blood off his lips, his hands trembling as he stares at the empty flask before him. He hadn’t expected to finish so soon.    
  
He hasn’t seen Dean in a few days because, really, screw Dean for acting the way he did. If he’s going to get angry about it—angry that he and Sam are at least able to meet each other in the way that they are…  
  
If Dean wants to act this way…  
  
… Sam really wishes he could see Dean again.  
  
He grits his teeth and sits down on the couch, running his hands over the embroidery again, trying to soothe the tremors, and trying to think straight. Ruby is the solution to all this, but she left. But she is important, and Sam needs more blood, and he needs to see Dean again.  
  
He makes up his mind and picks up the phone, vision blurring and head spinning. When he reaches Ruby’s voicemail, he clenches his jaw. “Where are you?” he asks her. “I need more. You gotta give me more blood.”  


 

  
  
The first two days in the angel 'green room' leave Dean crawling up walls and going stir-crazy. He tries everything he can do to escape—breaking out and climbing out and killing Zachariah—but he is unsuccessful, and he soon learns that he can’t get out until the angels let him leave. So he slinks back against a wall and tries to fall asleep, but even in his meagre attempts, his sleep is mostly dreamless and the room is charmed to refresh his memories once he wakes up.  
  
The lack of dreams, though, indicates that Sammy is pissed.  
  
Well, boo fucking hoo. Dean would rather Sam be pissed forever than have him walk down that demonic road he’s taking. Sam may not like this, but Dean doesn’t care. He’s getting a bad vibe here and he was right to be angry at Sam.   
  
The third, fourth, fifth and sixth day, Dean is sent to prevent another seal from breaking and his attempts to contact Bobby are met with an immediate punch in the face. Cas isn’t around; instead, Dean works with a no-name angel, and they don’t even manage stop the seal from breaking in time.  
  
When Dean is back in the God-forsaken room, all he wants is for someone to kill him.   
  
Sam enters Dean’s dreams that night, looking ragged and tired. Dean doesn’t know why the kid wants to talk all of a sudden, but all his anger at Sam drains away upon seeing the sunken eyes and sweaty face of his brother.  
  
_You okay?_  he asks Sam.  
  
_Yes._  
  
_You don’t look—_  
  
_I’m not a kid anymore and I can take care of myself._  
  
Dean raises an eyebrow.  _Is that why you called this meeting? To justify what you’re doing, by telling me you can think for yourself? Because, newsflash: you can’t!_  
  
_I very well can. And this is necessary to kill Lilith and to stop the Apocalypse._  
  
_Did Ruby say that to you?_  Dean asks him.  
  
Sam doesn’t reply, and Dean glares.  _She did, didn’t she? She fucking fed you a bunch of crap, and you trusted her._  
  
_She is trustworthy. I’m not going to change that._  
  
_Awesome, she does a little bit of a skin-show and you lose your head._  
  
_It’s not like that!_  
  
_It **is**  like that! _Dean tells him.  _She’s poison! Can’t you see what she’s done to you? Because I know why you’re like this, Sam, and it spells addiction with a capital ‘A’._  
  
_I’m not some junkie!_  
  
_Really? Why are your hands shaking then? She leaves you pining for the blood, doesn’t she? Makes you think you can’t live without it?_  
  
Sam’s nostrils flare.  _Have you considered that this is probably who I am? What I am?_  
  
_What you are?_ Dean spits at him.  _Do you know what you look like right now?_  
  
_What?_  
  
_Never mind, Sam._  
  
Sam looks angry now, cheeks reddening, visible even through the waxy skin, and his eyes fill up.  _I know what you want to say. Say it._  
  
Dean can feel his own throat constrict. Is this what it has all come to? Being sort-of reunited with his brother, only for a whole bunch of lies?  
  
_Say it,_  Sam repeats through gritted teeth.  _Say it, you fucking coward._  
  
Dean’s heart pumps against his chest, his blood running hot.  _Fine,_  he says.  _You’re a fucking monster. And if you weren’t my brother and if I didn’t know you, I would hunt you._  
  
Before he can talk further, a fist connects with his jaw. Dean stumbles back, biting his tongue and tasting blood. Sam. still looks shaky, but angry as fuck. But screw him, Dean thinks, as he launches forward, avoiding Sam’s block and hammering his nose.  
  
Sam sniffs back a drip of blood from his nostril, and pushes at Dean’s shoulder to avoid his knee. He comes back with a roundhouse kick at Dean's ankle, knocking him off-balance before nailing Dean on the thigh.  
  
Dean gasps at the heavy boot crashing against him, and then the fist to his mouth that splits his lip. He shakes out of it and aims a kick at Sam’s stomach, which his brother fails to block. Sam takes a gasping breath and delivers an elbow to Dean’s face. He catches Dean’s wrist in a flash, spinning him around and grabbing him in a chokehold.  
  
Dean can feel the pressure on his airways and he draws a strangled breath, but Sam only tightens his grasp.   
  
_You don’t know me,_  he says as Dean struggles for air.  _You never have, and you never will._  
  
Dean wants to tell him to stop; that he does know Sam and that they can talk, but his anger overrides everything else while his head spins and his vision begins to fade.  
  
Just when he thinks he’s going to pass out, Sam pushes him away, letting Dean fall on the gritty ground. Dean fights against impending blackness and tears to see Sam walk away.  
  
Zachariah is sure to remind Dean of every single bit of the fight once he’s awake.  
  


 

  
  
Sam jerks back into reality and brushes angrily at the wetness in his eyes. Since Dean knows everything anyway, he reckons he might as well go ahead with what he’s doing. He only wishes Ruby would stop being such a bitch, and come back quickly.  
  


 

  
  
The seventh day, Cas arrives in said God-forsaken room with a whoosh of his wings, only to grab Dean and kiss him. He gestures for Dean to be silent as he takes Dean’s wrist, softly, tenderly, and zaps them out of the green room.  
  


 

  
  
Sam is shaking, feverish and nauseated when Ruby arrives at the apartment. “Hey,” she greets him, peeling off her leather jacket and throwing it on the couch. “What’s going on?”  
  
He stares at her for a minute. “I told you,” he finally says, “I need some more blood.”  
  
She’s shaking her head. “What changed your mind?”  
  
“I need it.”  
  
“Did Dean say something?”  
  
“Stop asking questions.”  
  
She sighs and slinks forward, going down on her knees before the couch and moving a hand to push back Sam’s hair. “Of course you can have it, Sammy.”  
  
He doesn’t correct her this time, just waits for her to grab the handle of her knife and sets to work on cutting herself.  
  


 

  
  
  
“We have to kill Lilith.”  
  
Dean and Cas have barely arrived at the motel room—the one they’d been kidnapped from—and Dean is a little alarmed when Cas suddenly clutches his shoulders and speaks. “Dean, it is very important we work on doing that. Before we get to Sam.”  
  
Dean wants to tell Cas that no, they don’t need to find Sam, that he’ll fucking be better by himself anyway, but he doesn’t. “Why?” he asks his boyfriend, at long last.  
  
“Lilith is the final seal.”  
  
_“What?”_  
  
“If we don’t kill her soon, and she breaks sixty-five, then killing her would set Lucifer free.”  
  
Dean opens his mouth, eyes growing wide at the revelation. “Are you sure of this?”  
  
“I heard my brothers and sisters talk,” he replies, “and we need to act fast, Dean.”  
  
“But Cas—”  
  
“Sam is trying to do the same thing from his side. Kill Lilith. I’m afraid the demon who you said he has befriended might be stalling him on purpose.”  
  
“What? He—”  
  
“Dean, it is destiny for Sam to set Lucifer free. Using his capabilities.”  
  
Dean is quiet for a long time, listening only to his and Cas’s breathing. He thinks of Sam; Sam, who was choking him, ready to kill him (but he didn’t, Sam didn’t mean to kill him because if he did, he would have). Dean hates Sam for this. He wants to rage and yell, and he doesn’t fucking want to look at Sam’s face, but—  
  
“Okay, let’s find Lilith.”  
  
“We need to interrogate demons for this,” Castiel says, preparing to zap away again. “I’ll try to find someone before my powers drain away.”  
  
He is poised to leave when Dean realises what he said, and makes a grab for his wrist. “ _What_?”  
  
“I escaped Heaven, and rebelled. They’ll cut me off,” Cas admits. “And until my wings don't work, I should make use of them.”  
  
Dean is speechless for a long moment. “Cas,” he says hoarsely. “Why…?”  
  
Castiel smiles at him, blue eyes serene. “You were the one who told me that it’s okay to sacrifice your most prized possessions for love, Dean. I’m just following your advice.” He pauses. “Dean, we might have to persuade the demons. You get that, right? We might—”  
  
“Do it,” Dean interrupts him. “Just do it.”  
  
With a kiss on Dean’s cheek and another  _whoosh_ , Cas is gone.  
  
0  
  
That night, Dean dreams of Sam again. But he’s barely entering the playground when Sam appears in front of him, hulking and looking odd. He takes a deep breath.  _I’ve spoken to Ruby. I’m not letting her go, and if you still want to hate me, you can do it, but I’m not apologising, Dean._   _I did it for you. I am still doing it for you._  
  
Sam flickers, and Dean is alone before he can tell his brother that he doesn’t hate him (he totally hates him), and that Sam is making a big mistake.  
  
0  
  
“So we gotta do  _what_?”  
  
“Find Lilith.”  
  
Dean, Cas, and Bobby are in Bobby’s basement, in a panic room (a fucking panic room) that he claims to have built over a free weekend. They turn to the demon that they’ve got tied up and gagged at the centre of the panic room. The demon is sweating and struggling in the intense pain that the room is already causing him, eyes pitch black and teeth bared as he hisses at his captors.  
  
“He knows?” Bobby asks Cas doubtfully.  
  
“Yes,” Cas tells him, “and he’ll tell us.”  
  
“How?”  
  
Cas’s eyes turn sympathetic when he glances at Dean. Bobby notices, before taking his ball-cap off and scratching his head. “You sure, Dean?”  
  
Dean nods as he picks up the demon-killing knife. “Yeah. Very.”  
  
0  
  
“Where is Lilith?”  
  
The demon hisses as Dean traces a cut down his clavicle with the knife, drawing orange-yellow sparks and a small, crimson trickle of blood that starts to slide down slowly over his skin.   
  
“Tell me,” Dean says, menacingly.  
  
“I don’t know,” the demon growls. “And if I did, I wouldn’t say.”  
  
Dean brings the knife back and digs it slightly into the demon’s sternum, eliciting a gasp from him. Blood blooms over the wound and drips down to join the first stream, staining the front of the demon’s shirt a deep carmine. “Where’s Lilith?”  
  
“I won’t say.”  
  
_Oh, bravo, Dean,_  says a familiar voice in Dean’s ear, and he turns around, but finds nothing. He eyes the demon and straightens up. He was just imagining it; he’s imagining all of it. This isn’t Hell, and Alastair isn’t here. Alastair isn’t here…  
  
“Is that all, Dean-o?” The demon suddenly asks from his chair. “Is that all you learned from Hell? From the master of the scalpel himself?”  
  
“Shut up!” Dean snarls, slashing the knife across the demon’s cheek.  
  
_Very good_ , says Alastair again, and Dean turns around. “Cas!”  
  
“You’re scared of doing this,” the demon chides Dean. “Of course you are, you fucking coward. What did you do in Hell for forty years? Cry out for your baby brother?”  
  
_You should tell him what you did, Dean._  
  
“CAS!” Dean’s own voice is muffled and weird to his ears. His heart is pounding against his chest and he’s trembling, backing away from the demon. His stomach is turning, his vision blurring, and he hears footsteps. Hands grasp his shoulders before cupping his face and shaking him.  
  
“Dean?”  
  
He’s walking… stumbling somewhere and sitting down. A pair of arms wrap themselves around him, his cheek resting on a shoulder. “You’re all right, Dean,” Cas is saying, his gravelly voice oddly comforting. “You just need a break.”  
  
“C-Cas…”  
  
“You don’t have to do that,” Cas tells him. “I shouldn’t have left you alone. Sorry.”  
  
“No. N-no.”  
  
No, Dean needs to so this, he really needs to do this. He grinds his cheek against Cas’s shoulder and tries to control himself. He needs to find Lilith. To find Sammy.  
  
_That’s the spirit_ , Alastair teases him.  _I can always rely on your love and devotion, can’t I?_  
  
Feeling his vision clear up, Dean pushes himself away from Cas. Bobby is standing over them, his face concerned, but Dean nods at him. “I g-got this.”  
  
“You sure, boy?” Bobby asks him. “No one’s forcin’ you here. We can handle that sucker just fine.”  
  
“No,” Dean stands on shaky legs. “I’ll do it. Give me an hour.”  
  
He barely registers the devastation on Cas and Bobby’s faces before re-entering the panic room.  
  
0  
  
“Indiana.”  
  
They’re in the panic room again, Dean sitting on a stool as they all eye the demon’s corpse, still in the centre. Dean’s hands are shaking, stinking of blood, but a roll of triumph washes over his body for being able to have extracted information about Lilith. He ignores his brain’s after-images of Alastair and clenches the knife in his hand. “Lilith’s in New Harmony, Indiana.”  
  
Cas immediately comes over to Dean, dropping a hand on his shoulder, and Dean grimaces up at him. “I’m okay.”  
  
Cas smiles back, crinkles appearing at the corners of his eyes. “You’re very brave,” he says. “I love you.”  
  
Dean can feel his ears grow warm.  
  
Bobby clears his throat to break the moment. “You two done honeymoonin’, or are ya gonna need a room?”  
  
0  
  
Dean, Cas and Bobby start packing supplies as soon as they’ve gotten rid of the demon’s meatsuit, having wrapped it up in a tarp and set up a pyre in Bobby’s backyard. They don’t have much time to spare, and Dean watches as Bobby packs medical supplies.  
  
“You know how to kill her?” he asks Dean. “She ain’t some piss-ant demon.”  
  
“The demon-killing knife that you possess should do fine,” Cas replies, joining them. “And if not that, the angel blade. Most creatures in creation are susceptible to an angel blade, and Lilith is one of them.”  
  
“Will we even get close enough to kill that bitch?” Dean asks him. “Won’t she kill us first?”  
  
“It isn’t entirely impossible,” Cas says.   
  
Dean looks over at Bobby, who shrugs. “Ain’t as though I haven’t laid down my life for you knuckleheads before.”  
  
“Bobby—”  
  
“I’m coming along,” says Bobby. “And then I’m comin’ to get your brother too.”  
  
Dean feels a sea of emotions wash over as he nods slowly. “If he still wants to be brothers.”  
  
Bobby is looking intently at Dean. “You gonna be a lil’ princess about this now?” he asks cautiously.  
  
“He thinks I’m a waste of his time,” Dean shrugs. “Forget it.”  
  
“He say that?”  
  
“No, but—”  
  
“If only I had time for all your friggin’ melodrama,” Bobby sighs. He holds Dean’s gaze. “Look, son, that kid’s drownin’, and you gotta pull him out. Don’t let him sink further.”  
  
“Further than chugging demon blood?” Dean asks Bobby. Bobby already knows about this; Dean had told him when he and Cas had arrived at his place. Bobby isn’t impressed, although he seems to be far more sympathetic with Sam than Dean feels.  
  
“He can go down even more,” Bobby tells him. “You think that’s the worst out there?”  
  
Dean swallows. “No…”  
  
“Good, so you gonna be like your daddy about this? Or you gonna stop bein’ an idjit?”  
  
“I…” Dean bites his lip, stuffing a bottle of holy water into his bag. “Let’s go find Lilith.”  
  
0  
  
There is a cold breeze blowing around town when Cas zaps Dean and Bobby to Indiana. The teleporting leaves Cas a little breathless, though, and Dean places a hand on his shoulder as he leans over slightly, composing himself.   
  
“You okay?”  
  
Cas nods. “I’ll be fine, Dean.”  
  
“Fucking liar.”  
  
Cas doesn’t reply to that. Instead, he points down the street in front of him, and glances at the dark clouds above them. “I’m sure Lilith is around here somewhere.”  
  
“Yeah, no kidding,” Dean scoffs, as they start walking. Above them, the clouds get darker and the wind gets cooler. Castiel’s knife slips out of his sleeve, into his hands, and Dean clutches the demon-killing blade in his hand while Bobby cocks his own shotgun and keeps the holy water ready. Dean knows that right now, they’re all just hoping to come out of this alive, so they can get to Sam and help him sooner.  
  
0  
  
The house materialises about ten minutes after they arrive at New Harmony. There is a crack of lightning and rumbling thunder, and it’s getting colder and darker, even though it’s mid-morning. Dean feels much trepidation at this unplanned attack on Lilith. If she gets to them, they’re all dead before they can talk or think, and Dean’s heart is thumping against his chest at the prospect. However, he knows that now’s the right time to do this, because according to Cas, only twenty or so seals are left to be broken, and he knows that if Lilith feels like it, she can do it all before Thanksgiving.  
  
“She’s here,” Cas mutters impassively.  
  
Dean stops, glancing at Bobby and facing Cas. “How do you know?”  
  
“I can sense her. Such evil is not easy to hide.”  
  
The street is empty, not a single soul on it. A little ways ahead is a row of houses, and Dean is willing to bet that Lilith is in one of them. He squints ahead. “We can’t just waltz in there.”  
  
“There’s no need to dance.”  
  
“ _Cas_ —”  
  
“We need to find a path out back,” says Bobby, ignoring both of them. “If we do that, we can get them without having to deal with too many of Lilith’s minions. And I can get the sprinklers to shoot holy water too.”  
  
“That’s a good idea,” says Cas. “I can still smite demons, so I’ll handle the ones that are guarding her.”  
  
Bobby nods. “And I’ll keep the sprinklers running so the other demons don’t get in.”  
  
Dean eyes the blade in Cas’s hands, and clenches his own around the hilt of Ruby’s knife. “I’ll get the bitch, then,” he says, swallowing. His heart starts to beat quickly, and beside him, Cas reaches over to squeeze his hand.  
  
“I’ll be with you. We’ll fight together. You are not alone in this, Dean.”  
  
Dean lets out a small sigh, ignoring the ominous feeling that settles in his chest. “All right. Let’s get this done with.”


	14. Chapter 14

  
  


  
  
Dean is thankful for the darkness once they begin to pursue a route behind the houses, with Cas glancing at random people and identifying the ones who are possessed. The demons increase in number as they walk farther, so they hide behind trees and fences, and pray to any and every god out there that they won’t be noticed.  
  
“She is here.”  
  
Dean stops abruptly when Cas comes to a halt near him, the three of them standing behind a tree and staring at a house in front of them. It looks no different from the others, but Dean can see, can feel how Cas has suddenly stiffened beside him, and he is confident of Cas’s instincts. He looks to Bobby. “You stay here, we’ll go cut that bitch.”  
  
Bobby’s eyes are soft. “Take care, boy.”  
  
“I will,” Dean promises and gives him a wan smile.  He fists a hand in Cas’s trenchcoat as they walk—Dean with the blade raised, and Cas with all his senses heightened. They meet no obstacles, not until they reach the front of the house.  
  
“She is in this house,” Castiel whispers  once again, and Dean gets out his lock picks. “There are no demons here, and that strikes me as suspicious.”  
  
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” Dean tells him mildly, although an ominous feeling grips him all over. The moment the lock picks are in, the door opens. Dean’s heart jumps. He nearly steps back, startled, because there is someone right at the door as it opens.  
  
It’s a woman, tall and blonde, and with a wide smile on her face as she watches Dean and Cas. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she says, “especially since you walked down the whole street and hid from my demons just to find me.”  
  
As she says it, the blades falls out of Dean’s and Cas’s hands, clattering to the floor and skidding away as Dean feels a gun at his temple. He turns, only to see a demon on the other side too, clutching at Castiel and twisting his hands behind his back. Lilith’s eyes roll up to reveal pure, stark white.  
  
“Come on in,” she says, as the demon behind Dean kicks him ahead, with Cas experiencing the same on his side. “What can I get you two? What will you have? A warm, slow death or some chilled quick death?”  
  
Dean clenches his jaw. “If you saw us coming, why didn’t you kill us before?”  
  
Lilith takes her time to reply as she walks over to the bar and pours herself a drink. When she’s back and sitting on the couch, she flashes another smile at Dean and Cas, and Dean wants to strangle her.   
  
“Well,” she says, tossing her hair, “that wouldn’t be fun at all. Now,” she leans back, eyes narrowing at them, “if you are willing, I have a deal for you.”  
  
“Screw you,” Dean snaps at her.  
  
“Oh, but you’ll want to listen to me.”  
  
“You wish.”  
  
She takes another sip, and sighs. “It’s a good deal, you know. Don’t turn me away so soon.”  
  
Dean moves, and feels the cold muzzle of the gun press a little harder against his temple. He grits his teeth. “I don’t want anything from you, bitch.”  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
“After the last time I made a deal? Yeah. I—”  
  
“I would like to listen to what you have to offer.”  
  
Castiel’s voice is low and gravelly, and Dean grimaces at the interruption, wincing a little when the gun pushes against his temple harder. He turns his gaze to Cas, who looks deadly serious, his hair slightly askew and his eyes practically sparkling with the no-nonsense expression that Dean has come to  _lo_ —well,  _like_.  
  
Lilith, however, smiles a wide, disgusting smile. “Sure,” she says in a voice brimming with sweetness, nauseating Dean with just the way it sounds. She walks ahead and closes the distance between her and Dean, bringing her face close enough so their noses are touching, and Dean can feel his skin crawl at the unwanted contact.   
  
“It’s a special deal, you know,” she whispers, with a caress in her voice. “And it takes a special kind of sealing too.”  
  
Dean just shuts his eyes for a minute, taking a deep breath, as Lilith brings up a finger, tracing it down Dean’s cheek. Beside him, Dean hears Cas growl. “Leave – him – alone!”  
  
She turns. “Defending your boyfriend’s honor, I see,” she says, giggling. “How touching. But don’t worry, I’ll ride you nice and slow before I ride him, so that, you know—he’ll be comfortable.”  
  
“Keep quiet, Abomination.”  
  
She laughs again. “You’re adorable. But you can’t do anything to hurt me, Castiel.” And her eyes roll up again as she looks at Dean. “Now. For the details.”  
  
“I’ve been waiting forever,” Dean tells her dryly.  
  
“And here’s my offer. I’ll stop breaking the seals.”  
  
“In return for—?”  
  
“You and your baby brother to stop chasing me around. I can’t kill you two because you’ll keep coming back like cockroaches, thanks to those angel friends of yours. But I want my hide protected from what you’re doing.” As she says this, Dean’s gunman backs away, and Dean looks towards Cas, who is still captured and struggling incessantly. If they can somehow turn this situation around, maybe they can escape, find Sam and bring him back here with a better plan. This deal, however…  
  
Dean purses his lips. “You’ll stop breaking the seals?”  
  
“You bet.”  
  
He shakes his head. “You’re lying. Why would you do that at all?”  
  
“You  _know_  why, Dean,” she replies, eyes narrowed, “and that’s exactly why you came here half-cocked, without a battle plan… and right into my arms.”  
  
“So releasing Lucifer isn’t your biggest wet dream?” Dean asks her.  
  
“Not at the cost of my life, no.”  
  
“And how do I know you’ll even keep your end of the deal?”  
  
“Because,” she says, eyes flashing malice, “it’s a rule for me, as a demon: for my constitution, for Hell, that I cannot make a deal without keeping all of it from my side.”  
  
“And you know where my brother is?”  
  
She grins. “He’s safe and sound, Dean. With me.”  
  
“I want to see him.”  
  
“No. You can’t reunite with baby bro. I want my life safe at all costs.”  
  
She is scared, Dean realises, and feels triumph course through him. “No deal, then,” he tells Lilith. He’s sure they can take her now. She’s killable.  
  
She shrugs. “Well, I thought you’d be sensible about saving the world, Dean, but looks like there is a point where you can be selfish too. Well, I don’t blame you, but pity you didn’t take the deal—because now you’re going to die.”  
  
She snaps her slender fingers, and as he watches the armed demon walk over, Dean acts on pure instinct. Before he knows it, he’s pushing back the demon who has a hold on Cas, forcing him to release the angel, and—  
  
 _Bang!_  
  
There’s a shot, and Dean spins aside, feeling the bullet graze his sleeve.   
  
“No!”  
  
Lilith is rushing towards them, and Cas grips Dean’s arms, throwing him behind as he flicks his wrist to push Lilith behind, making her totter back and fall into the sofa. She laughs, but Dean doesn’t pay attention to it, as Cas presses a palm to the forehead of the demon who was holding him, just as Dean avoids another shot from the other one.  
  
He rushes to the entrance, where the angel blade has fallen, and grabs it, ducking another gunshot, and stopping in his place for a second, while Cas smites the demon. Suddenly, Lilith is there, before him, raising her hand. Dean charges forward, plunging his blade into the soft flesh of her belly. Before he can kill her, Lilith opens her mouth, screaming, swirling black smoke out into the open, and Dean feels his heart pound as he watches her exit from the window at the back.  
  
He and Cas race out the front door, to where Bobby is manning the sprinklers, demons crowding around them and leering, but there’s no sign of Lilith. Dean, though glad that Bobby is safe, grabs Cas’s hand. “Sammy,” he whispers. “That’s where she’s gone. She’s gonna hurt him.”  
  
Castiel’s eyes widen in realisation. “How do we find him?”  
  
“Pamela,” Dean replies at once. “She’ll know. She’ll tell us. Take us there.”  
  
The moment Dean says it, Bobby comes forward to clutch Cas’s arm and in the next second, they’re all gone.  
  
0  
  
“You want to  _what_?” Pamela looks confused as she sits on her couch, scrutinising Dean, Cas and Bobby, and processing Dean’s request. She’s just finished tracking the piece of plaid that Dean had given Sam on their meeting, and she still can’t find him.  
  
“Send me back to Sam—my soul or subconscious or whatever you did the last time,” Dean pleads with her.   
  
“And do what?” Pamela asks him. “How do you plan to help him? The fact that I can’t trace him, Dean, and the fact that there is some intense black magic surrounding him, can make it dangerous for you to go back.”  
  
“I need him back,” Dean says, interrupting her. “Enough is enough. My brother is in danger. Lilith has him  _right fucking now_!”  
  
“If we do this like the first time, you can’t communicate with him, or even Lilith if you see her,” she says. “You know that.”  
  
“I need to warn him and I need to get him out of this. Isn’t there another way? Maybe you can track him using me? Something?  _Anything_?”  
  
She sighs. “It’s dangerous.”  
  
“So you can do it?”  
  
“I can send you there,” says Pamela, “but he’s surrounded by something very evil. You have to understand. I can do astral projection and I can do all sorts of shit to get you there, but if you get lost or attacked and can’t return, then you’re looking at literal hell for the rest of your life.”  
  
Dean grins at her. “Been there, done that, sweetheart. Just send me there now. This is urgent.”  
  
“I have to have a grip on you too,” she presses. “And if it’s broken in any way—”  
  
“I get it, it’s risky,” Dean tells her. “Believe me, I get it. But…” he breathes a deep breath, “he’s my brother.”  
  
“You two are gonna be the death of me.”

  
  
  
“The seals are going down fast, Sam. Are you ready for this?”  
  
Sam looks at Ruby as she settles on the rickety coffee table before him. “We can’t let Lilith break all sixty-six. You know that.”  
  
“I know,” Sam tells her. “But we don’t know where Lilith is. How many are gone anyway?”  
  
“More than half,” she says. “We have time. But it’s not going to be easy to kill Lilith.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
The kettle on the burner starts to keen, steam pouring out from the snout, and Ruby is on her feet. “We need a plan,” she says. “You think, I’ll get your tea.”  
  
He leans back on the couch and watches her as she pulls out a chipped mug and pours water into it, before beginning to hunt for teabags. Sam glances down at her knife and picks it up, running a finger over the blade. The demon-killing knife she had given them is with Dean, and Sam wishes he had it with him.  
  
There is a tap on his shoulder, and he accepts the tea from Ruby, watching is she goes back to sit on the table. “So,” she says, “what do we do?”  
  
Sam takes a sip of the tea. It’s slightly bitter, a little weird, and he wonders what Ruby’s done to it. He smacks his lips, grimacing at the teabag. “What did you do to this?”  
  
“Nothing,” she says. “You should probably restock your teabags.”  
  
Sam takes some more sips, hating the taste but drinking it anyway because he doesn’t have the patience to boil some more water. Pushing the empty mug aside, he rubs at the corners of his eyes and peers into the spell book that Ruby has opened.   
  
“Have a look at this,” she says, pointing at a Latin verse. “We can use this to locate Lilith.”  
  
“Is it effective?”  
  
“Tried and tested.”  
  
The feeling in Sam’s gut is foreboding when he goes ahead to look at the spell, but he decides to ignore it. Nothing about what he’s doing is good or right anyway. He’ll sort this one out too.

  
  
  
“Concentrate, Dean, listen to my voice.”  
  
Dean takes a deep breath, letting Pamela’s voice reach him, touching his insides, taking over his mind and his senses. He’s at the stairs outside Sam’s window, Pamela tethering him to herself, and he tries to look in through the glass, battling the blurring in his vision. There’s no one in the bedroom, though, and his heart sinks. He had hoped he’d be able to catch a glimpse of his brother.  
  
“Do it,” Pamela instructs him and Dean reaches for his jacket, pulling out the black, enchanted cloth that she’d given him, and tying it on the railing of the stairs.  
  
He pauses for a minute, as does Pamela, and Dean’s heart is racing as he hopes and hopes for Sam to enter the bedroom, but nothing happens. Eventually, the door opens and he’s watching Ruby enter the room when he feels himself snap back.  
  
He opens his eyes with a blasting headache pounding at his skull, and realises that Pamela has already begun another spell, whispering and mixing ingredients and lighting a fire.  
  
Her eyes dart over to Dean. “I’ve got him.”

  
  
  
“You should talk to Dean.”  
  
Sam watches the knife, blade tip resting on Ruby’s pale skin, his throat going dry and heartbeat quickening with want. Ruby, however, doesn’t proceed to cut herself.  
  
“Are you listening to me?” she asks Sam, and he can feel the question jarring at his nerve endings.  
  
“I am,” he grits out. “Will you mind your own business now?”  
  
“I’m just saying,” she says, plunging in the blade and starting to cut, “that if you drink some more, I don’t think you’d require for Dean to sleep, so you could manipulate his dreams. You could communicate with him other ways, Sam, and you could actually find him. And if you tell him about this, he won’t think you’re keeping secrets either—because you’re literally not, and all of this crap can be sorted out.”  
  
Sam listens to her, registering her suggestions and vowing to use them, as he bends over the wound and sucks her blood, his mind and heart and soul revelling in the taste and the feel and the richness of it all while Ruby keeps stroking his hair.

  
  
Dean is holding Cas’s hand, squeezing it lightly while he threads fingers with his angel. Cas’s grip is firm and gentle all at once, and Dean rubs his thumb over the smooth skin at the back of his palm. “You sure you can do this?”  
  
“The surest I can be.”  
  
“Cas, your mojo—”  
  
“If I’m being drained because I’m helping someone, Dean, then so be it,” Cas tells him, peering earnestly into Dean’s eyes. “I have seen you struggle over this for a long time. I have seen you crave your family.” He pauses. “I want you to have it, Dean.”  
  
“Cas…”  
  
“I have seen a lot of souls in Heaven. And a lot of them on earth,” he says, “but the purest I’ve ever seen is the one I rescued from Hell.” He cups Dean’s face. “You are important to me, Dean Winchester. If there’s anybody I’d give up Heaven for, it’s you.”  
  
Dean feels his breath hitch as he leans forward, matching lips with Cas’s. He can feel Cas’s hands roam to the back of his neck as he wraps his arms around him, and when they’re done, Dean pulls back and runs a finger over Cas’s lower lip.  
  
“I don’t even know what to tell you,” he says, chuckling softly. “How did I get to be with such a cheesy nerd?”  
  
Before Cas can give him a reply to that, Dean is kissing him again.

  
  
Sam smacks his lips at the bitterness in his mouth, scrunching his face at the odd taste. It came from the tea and has been lingering ever since, despite all that blood, and he moves over to the kitchen counter to see if the teabags are bad.  
  
“What’s the matter?” Ruby asks him from the other end of the living room as she pulls on a jacket. “You seriously gonna have some more tea?”  
  
“No,” Sam replies. “I think the teabags are bad.”  
  
“Told you that you need to replace them,” Ruby says to him.  
  
He gives her a non-committal shake of his head as he goes to toss the teabags. It’s warm and dry today, enough to make Sam feel restless, and the added kick from the blood—the instinct to want to do something is there too. He walks back to the couch and sits beside Ruby. “So you think I can get to Dean now?”  
  
“You’ve had enough,” she shrugs. “It shouldn’t be hard.”  
  
“Okay. Should I…” he looks at her, unsure, “should I just concentrate or—?” His mind is spinning a little bit, with the buzz of the high, and he just needs his heart to settle down for a moment so he can think. But  _fuck_ , it’s hot and dry.  
  
“What do you do every time, Sam?” Ruby asks him. “How do you get to him?”  
  
“I shut my eyes and—” Sam pauses. “I don’t—” he leans back, loosening his shirt. “It’s hot.”  
  
“You’ve had a lot of blood to drink,” she says. “You had some off that other flask too. Give yourself time.”  
  
“Okay,” he says. “Okay.” Sam watches Ruby smile softly before leaning back and closing his eyes.

  
  
  
Dean’s hand is sweaty when he lets go of Cas’s. He wipes it off on his jeans, glancing at Bobby and then Cas again, and nodding. This is where Pamela located Sam, and Dean is a little surprised by the woods that are surrounding him. There’s a cabin a few feet away, and he can see the black bandanna, tied to the railing of the staircase leading to the porch. It sits there innocently, beckoning to them and billowing in the slight wind that’s blowing.   
  
Dean points to the cabin, although he figures it’s obvious now. “Sam is there.”  
  
The moment he says it, Cas bends over beside him. For a moment, Dean wonders if he’s trying to look at something, but then he realises that Cas is doubled over, gasping for breath. “Cas?!”  
  
Cas swivels a set of wet, blue eyes towards Dean, mouth agape and drawing in rattling breaths, but his knees buckle. Dean suddenly finds himself sinking to the ground along with him. He squeezes Cas’s shoulder. “Hey, what is it? Talk to me.”  
  
Castiel can’t answer, can’t breathe and  _fuck_ , are angels supposed to breathe at all? Dean pulls him forward into his arms and cradles Cas’s neck. “Take it easy,” he says. “Take it easy, dude.”  
  
“G-Gr—” Cas pants, and he doesn’t need to complete the word.  
  
“Your grace?” Dean asks him. “What happened? Is this a side effect of your draining mojo?”  
  
Cas nods against Dean’s shoulder, and Dean holds him tighter—as tight as he can, without suffocating him. “I told you,” he says urgently, voice cracking. “I told you that you didn’t need to do this, you asshole!”  
  
Cas just rests his temple on Dean’s shoulder, mouth turned towards his ear as he puffs out breath after desperate breath. Behind him, Dean feels Bobby crouch to his level, and a hand on his shoulder. “Dean,” Bobby says to him, “I’ll take care of Cas. Go get Sam.” His voice is a little shaky, but mostly level.  
  
Dean takes a sharp breath. “Cas, I’ll be back, ok?” he tells his boyfriend, pressing his lips against his clammy forehead. “I’ll be back. Hold on. We’ll put you back together, pal.”  
  
A trembling hand grasps Dean's and squeezes. Bobby holds onto Castiel’s shoulder and lets Dean detach himself from him. Dean rushes away, willing himself not to look back at Cas as he runs down the dirt trail and climbs the stairs at breakneck speed. His heart is racing too, because it’s been months,  _months_ , and at long last, they’ve done it. They’re here, and he is going to see Sam. For real.  
  
He’s almost dizzy with happiness and worry.  
  
He practically bounds over the last step, and reaches the bedroom window to peer inside. He can see Sam’s long legs, sprawled across the bed, and Dean’s heart skips a beat at that. He squints, and notices that Sam’s eyes are shut, chest rising and falling rhythmically as though he’s asleep, which he probably is. And then his eyes fall on the figure crouched on the other side. It’s Ruby, but she’s not the brunette that Dean had seen a while back. She’s in a blonde body—the blonde vessel that Dean has vague memories of. She’s sitting with her back against a corner, hugging her knees as her head is tilted back against the wall. Her eyes are rolled upwards, the whites visible.  
  
Like Lilith.  
  
“What the fuck?”   
  
Dean acts without thinking. In a second, his elbow goes through the thin glass of the window, shattering it, and Ruby jumps up, yelping. Her eyes turning human again, right before they flash black.   
  
“D-Dean?” she gasps when he climbs in, jagged glass tearing a hole in his jeans. Even as he enters the room, Dean only has eyes for Sam. Sam, who still hasn’t gotten up despite the commotion. Sam, who is panting, and now that Dean notices it, squirming a little too.  
  
Dean rounds on Ruby. “What have you done to my brother, you bitch?”  
  
“N-nothing, I—”   
  
She’s not even finished her sentence and Dean’s pinning her against the wall with his arm, the demon-killing knife at her throat. “ _What have you done to him?_ ” he demands.  
  
“I’m trying to help him,” Ruby replies, her eyes filling up, and Dean is revolted by her face and the tears as they fall. He grits his teeth, holds her tighter, and flips her around so she’s braced against him and facing Sam. And the more he looks at Sam, the worse he feels. Because, oh God, unlike what Sam looked like in all those dreams—healthy and buffed up, with those ridiculous sideburns—right here and now, he’s actually really thin. His arms are bony, shooting out of a too-loose t-shirt, and his face is all planes and angles, ungodly pale. If he weren’t breathing so visibly, Dean would have thought…  
  
He pushes down the thought. Sam is alive and well. But what’s happened to him? Why does Sam look so sick? What’s wrong?  
  
He clutches Ruby tighter against him, not bothering with how harsh he is. “If you’re trying to help him,” he growls in her ear, “why does he look so off?”  
  
“Lilith,” Ruby breathes. “Lilith attacked him, and—”  
  
“Stop lying,” Dean snarls. “Tell me the truth or you’re dead. I don’t even care what Sammy’s gonna say once he wakes up.”  
  
Ruby lets out a soft sob, breath hitching once, twice, before she finally relaxes in Dean’s grip, and starts to laugh. Dean increases pressure on the knife, edge grazing against tender skin, but Ruby keeps laughing. Her shoulders shake and she’d be doubling over if Dean hadn’t been holding her the way he is.  
  
He presses down on the knife some more, feeling blood well up from against the blade. “What’s funny?” he demands. “What the fuck have you done?”  
  
“N-nothing,” Ruby stammers again, but this time, it’s because she’s laughing too hard. “I didn’t have to do anything, Dean. He was like this when I found him.”  
  
Dean bends over so that he’s looking at the side of her face, hating her widened, grinning lips. “What do you mean?”  
  
She turns to him ever so slightly, her eyes demon-black. “Your brother,” she spits out, “has been like this for the last six months. I found him buried in a two-man grave with you, in Texas, and I pulled him out. But imagine my disappointment when I heard that you’d been rescued too, because we thought we could start you off early in Hell. Your brother, though, he’s in a coma of some sort. Never woke up even once.” She chuckles some more. “It was fun to look after him. He misses you a lot.”  
  
“What are you talking about?”   
  
It’s like the world around Dean is dissolving. What does she mean by this? Of course Sam is awake, of course he’s all right; if Dean can communicate with him and has been doing so all this time, and if Sam can use his psychic powers and act normal and be normal, he has to be awake. Does Ruby even think she can fool Dean with such a ridiculous lie?  
  
“Oh, I’m not lying,” Ruby tells him, as though she can read his mind. “You can kill me, Dean, but Sam’s been like this ever since you disappeared on him. Luckily, I found him, and with a healthy diet of demon blood…”  
  
“I saw you,” Dean tells her. “I saw him drinking it.”  
  
“In his subconscious,” she smirks. “I have some tricks in my bag too, you know. Kind of like you’d gotten into his subconscious that day when you found us. I used to be a witch. I’ve been…” she chuckles, “physically and mentally feeding him demon blood for a while now.”  
  
The anger thrumming inside Dean’s veins intensifies. “You’ve been force-feeding my brother,” he snarls. “Giving him all that blood and fucking him, and—”  
  
“All with consent, Dean,” Ruby informs him lazily. “I wasn’t even doing anything to him for real. I was actually just a voice to him. His subconscious was what decided to give me the form of some brunette chick, and you think you even saw me like that. He definitely had a lot of fantasies about me. That subconscious of his is rich. I’m a bitch, but I don’t rape…” She grins wickedly. “Well, at least I didn’t rape Sam. I can’t speak for the others. As for the blood, I asked, and he accepted.”  
  
Dean doesn’t want to know who the ‘others’ were. He clenches his jaw. “You can’t expect me to believe that he could use his powers in this condition.”  
  
“Oh, he can,” Ruby tells him. “He just needs to think about it, and I enabled him the whole time.” She briefly turns towards Dean, malice in her black sclerae. “You humans undermine your subconscious. Works well for us, though.”   
  
“He’d have died. If he had no food and no water…”  
  
“I did make sure he was fed properly. We needed him alive,” Ruby replies. “But, you know, we don’t need that anymore, so…” She gestures to a transparent, slightly grimy packet lying on the floor, next to the bed. “Devil’s weed. Lilith’s orders,” she whispers. “I fed that to him too, and I think he knows something’s wrong, but he thinks his tea was odd.”   
  
She laughs again. “You can kill me if you want, Dean. I’ve done what I had to.”  
  
Dean can feel her voice jarring against his skull, and his nerve endings crackle in irritation, his hand clenching against the blade. Everything’s red,  _everything_ , until finally he feels himself sigh at the endorphins that get released when he slashes Ruby’s own demon-killing knife over her throat.  
  
Dropping her limp body, Dean heads over to the bed where his brother is sleeping; where his brother has been lying for the last six months, in a  _coma_.


	15. Chapter 15

  


  


  
“Bobby!”  
  
Dean is yelling down the porch of the cabin as he glances at Sam, deathly still on the bed behind him. Oh God, oh God… how the fuck are they supposed to get out of this now? Why is Sam in a coma?   
  
He feels his stomach roil at the very thought of the word, ‘coma’. “Bobby!”  
  
The next moment, Bobby makes himself visible from behind a tree, where he seems to have been tending to Cas. “Dean?”  
  
“You need to come up here. Bobby—”  
  
“Is Sam okay?”  
  
“No.”  
  
Bobby’s expression is unreadable as he goes down on his knees, presumably to talk to Cas. The next moment, both of them are up, Cas’s arm circling Bobby’s neck, and Bobby clutching his waist as they start walking. Cas is pushing himself on with hitching shoulders, and half his weight is on Bobby.  
  
“Cas, stay back,” Dean calls to him, but he’s walking ahead anyway, eyes and face determined, and Dean wants to grab him and pull him into the biggest kiss ever. Dean is shifting from foot to foot, on the verge of wringing his palms together, when Cas and Bobby reach upstairs, and they’re both a little shocked to see Sam.  
  
“He’s not awake,” Dean tells them. “He has been like this all this time. Whatever he thought he was doing was just in his subconscious or something—I don’t know. Ruby kept him hidden. She was working for Lilith.” He rattles off the basics, keeping his anger and anxiety at bay, because right now, he doesn’t want to fall apart.  
  
Sammy just needs to be all right.  
  
Bobby glances at Ruby’s dead form behind them. “Balls.”  
  
“We need to get Sam to a hospital too,” Dean says, moving over to see how he can try and haul his brother out of the bed. “He’s been poisoned.”  
  
“With what?!”  
  
“Devil’s weed.”  
  
“ _Balls_!” Bobby repeats. “Get your ass in gear, then, we can’t delay by even a minute.”  
  
Dean freezes. “You know what devil’s weed is?”  
  
“I do,” Bobby replies, looking grim, “It ain’t good, I won’t lie to ya.”   
  
“Okay, okay.” Dean stumbles forward to the bed to gather his brother in his arms. He runs a hand down the side of Sam’s face, palms his hair, and cups his neck. “It’s gonna be okay,” he whispers, getting on his knees and pulling Sam up to carry him. “It’s gonna be okay, bud.”   
  
He's wrapping an arm around Sam’s back, the other reaching under his knees, when he hears a soft, feeble voice.  
  
“D-D’n?”  
  
“Sammy?”  
  
Lancing pain shoots through Dean’s skull, images appearing and disappearing in Technicolor, and Dean feels hands support him, take Sam off his arms. He’s sitting on a surface…  _somewhere_ … remembering his dad handing him a baby as he ran out of a flaming house… a floppy-haired kid, looking at him with pure hero worship and adoration in his eyes… hunt after hunt after hunt, in cities and towns and the woods… Sam leaving, bags slung over his shoulders, the heat of a fight visible in the tears in his eyes… Sammy coming back to hunt… Sammy dying… the hardest year of their lives, and…  
  
… It’s a dream… it’s all a dream and Dean is walking in a graveyard. The air smells putrid, of rotting flesh and dying organs, and he turns around, looking for his brother. Because that’s all he knows to do right now. Find Sammy. Find Sam.  
  
 _Sammy?_  Dean calls out tentatively. Sam has to be here, right? He should be here. This is how they’ve spoken to each other, for months. This is how they will speak now too.  
  
There is a shift in the shadows, and Dean shivers as he turns around.  _Sammy?_  
  
There’s no reply. No trace of Sam. Dean’s call, however, does get answered. And this isn’t Sam either.  
  
 _Choose._  
  
The voice is dry, rough around the edges, and it’s grating and haunting at the same time. Dean hugs himself, hands clutching his upper arms.  
  
 _Choose what?_  he asks the unknown voice.  
  
He needs to find Sam.  
  
 _I was lost,_  the creature says,  _and so will you be. I had a choice, and so will you. Find him, and it breaks. Know him, and it breaks._  
  
 _Huh?_  
  
 _Choose._  
  
 _Between what?_  
  
 _Huginn or Muninn._  The voice replies.   
  
 _Huginn,_  Dean says.  _Huginn._  
  
There is a scoff of laughter. _You chose wrong._  
  
At that moment, Dean opens his eyes, knees wobbling, the world tilting as an after-effect of the vision and he’s looking around at Bobby and Cas and a very dazed Sam.   
  
“I remember,” Dean says. “I remember everything.”   
  
Sam sways, blinking heavily, and Dean leaps back to help him. “We need to get to the hospital first.”  
  
0  
  
“I d-don’t… don’ feel s… s-so good, D’n.”  
  
“I know, buddy.” Dean tucks Sam closer to his side, supporting him down the cabin stairs as he watches Bobby doing the same with Cas, and in a hurry. He pauses for a moment and grabs Dean’s black bandanna. He reckons it could be useful to them. Sam is shaky, with legs that haven’t been used for six months, and walking even with Dean for support is nothing short of a miracle for him now. The area they are in looks like some sort of Bermuda Triangle because there’s no network on anyone’s phone, and Dean curses Ruby for choosing such a place to hide his brother. They can’t call an ambulance.   
  
He pushes the thoughts out of his mind and concentrates on his brother. They need a car and for that, they need to get to civilisation first.   
  
“Do you even know if there's a hospital close by?” Bobby asks Dean, panting with the effort of hauling Cas out.  
  
“I am not sure where we are,” Dean admits.   
  
“Dammit.”  
  
“Just keep walking, Bobby.”  
  
“Dean—” Sam feels warm, and he rests his head on Dean’s shoulder as they walk along, sun bright and hot and unforgiving. Sam is swaying, staggering, and unable to hold his own, and Dean can’t quell the dread settling in his stomach. “D-Deannn I cannn’t… s-see…”  
  
“Hey.” Dean soothes him, running his free hand through Sam’s hair. “We’re getting you help. We’re getting you help, okay?”  
  
Ahead of him, Bobby stops in his tracks. “I’m growing fuckin’ old,” he growls.  
  
“What happened?”  
  
“Gimme my duffel.”   
  
Dean hands him the bag that’s hanging from his shoulders, straps cutting from the weight of everything that’s in it. “Fucking heavy,” he adds. “How much shit you got in there?”  
  
“Enough to save our lives.” Bobby sits Cas at the base of a gigantic tree and puts his duffel down beside him, rummaging through it. “I think I’ve got a temporary solution to this problem,” he mumbles. He pulls out a toiletries bag, digs inside, and produces a small, glass bottle, and then another bottle of water from his duffel. He opens the water and measures two cups of syrup to pour into it.  
  
“Ipecac?” Dean asks him, noticing the name of the syrup.  
  
“You got a better idea? That’s devil’s weed we’re talking about, and it sure ain’t about Lucifer smokin’ a joint. Screws with every part of the body.” Bobby shakes the bottle thoroughly and throws it to Dean, who catches it. “Get him chuggin’,” he says. “This ain’t nothin’ different from what they’ll do in the ER anyway. These woods don’t look like they’re ending anytime soon.”  
  
He throws the duffel back to Dean and helps Cas up again, as Dean slings the bag back over his shoulder. He hands the bottle to Sam. “Drink this, Sammy.”  
  
Sam looks at him with half-mast eyes and accepts the concoction, shaking hands putting the rim of the bottle to his mouth. He frowns at the first sip, and his hands immediately lose their grip but Dean holds it up for him. “No, no, Sam, you gotta drink it all at once.”  
  
“D-D’n.”  
  
“You trust me?”  
  
Sam doesn’t reply. He only opens his mouth a little and Dean stops for a moment, helping him drink the water in rapid gulps. A stream of water breaks loose from the corner of Sam’s mouth and threads down his chin, and Dean tosses the plastic bottle away, raising a hand to wipe the water off his brother’s face. Sam’s legs choose that moment to decide they can’t do it anymore, and suddenly he’s sliding down. Dean swears before finally winding his arms around Sam, one under his back and one beneath his knees so that he’s lifting him up.   
  
“Dean?” Bobby turns back, concerned.  
  
“I got him,” Dean pants, feeling Sam’s warm face in the crook of his neck as he holds him closer. “Let’s just get out of this place.” Sam is unusually light, and Dean’s stomach sinks at how easily he can carry his brother. It’s not supposed to be like this. Sam is supposed to be a fucking Sasquatch and he’s supposed to protest at Dean carrying him. Dammit, it’s not supposed to be like this.  
  
They keep walking for about a half hour, the woods unending as they meander around trees and stumble over twigs and stones. Dean’s arms ache from the weight of his brother, and Sam is growing warmer by the moment, his face beet red and his lips dry and peeling.  
  
Dean halts for a moment and calls out to Bobby, who comes over and lifts a bottle of water to Sam’s mouth. “Here, Sammy,” Dean whispers to his brother, as Sam rejects the drink. “Have that. Have that.”   
  
It takes a moment but Sam opens his mouth and shuts it, swallowing convulsively. “Don’ – don’…” His face loses colour, and Dean instinctively knows what’s coming next.  
  
He leans Sam against a tree and helps him crouch down, placing a hand on Sam’s neck when he squirms uncomfortably. “Bobby?” Dean calls out, holding Sam’s shoulder with his other hand as Sam pants shallowly and swallows, groaning and hot.  
  
Bobby joins them as quick as he can while Cas slides down to the floor, a safe distance from Sam. Dean bends over his struggling, delirious brother. “Hey,” he says, patting Sam’s shoulder, “take it easy, okay? You’ll feel better in a jiff.”  
  
  
Sam moans again, trembling fingers clutching at his belly. “B-Buuur-urns,” he gasps, coughing, and Dean holds on to him, crouching behind Sam with a hand on his back.  
  
“Is it supposed to burn?” Dean asks Bobby.  
  
“It’s the poison,” Bobby replies.   
  
Dean sighs and continues to comfort his brother, rubbing and patting his back when Sam shudders and finally throws up. Sam’s unable to hold up and his legs shake from their crouch, making Bobby lean forward and brace Sam’s shoulder and chest.  
  
Sam retches again and Dean thumps his back, waiting patiently for his brother to finish and hoping for the poison to completely exit Sam’s body. Sam pukes and pukes and proceeds to dry heave painfully, eyes scrunched shut as his hand claws at his own abdomen. It never seems to end—the painful moaning, retching and gasping—and Dean’s at his own breaking point when it finally,  _finally_  comes to a halt.   
  
At long last, when Sam’s done, Dean heaves a sigh of relief and pulls him back from the mess to let him rest against his shoulder.  
  
“Here you go,” he says, taking his bandanna from Bobby, who’s wet it with some water, and dabbing it over Sam’s face. “Feeling better?”  
  
Sam shakes his head no, and Dean’s heart just sinks a little more. He sighs as he starts to lift his brother again. “Let’s move. Come on. Tell me if we have to stop again.”  
  
They get going from there, hoping against all the hope in this universe, to God and whatever else might be up there that the woods will end soon.  
  
0  
  
The car is there as an answer to all their prayers. The woods end soon after Sam has another puking episode, and even Dean can’t take his weight any longer. Sam might have lost muscle, but his bones still weigh a ton. They are thankful for the car parked just outside a dingy motel, its owner too stoned to realise that he’s being stolen from.  
  
Dean takes the backseat with Sam, with Cas in the front with Bobby. And, as they pull out, Dean says a prayer, out in the open, to God and all his angels, to give Sam back to him. That’s when Cas looks behind, nine kinds of misery written in his eyes, and smiles at Dean. “Everything will be okay,” he says. “Trust me.”  
  
And Dean really trusts him.  
  
0  
  
  
Sam groans in his sleep, and Dean glances at him, tugging at his brother to pull him close. “It’s okay, Sammy,” he mutters. “Hang in there, man.” He looks up at Cas, who’s sitting in the passenger seat and slumped against the window. He’s been unable to heal Sam, no matter how much he’s tried, and is still in distress, as far as Dean can see.  
  
“So what did you see?” Bobby asks Dean, his eyes on the road as he drives.  
  
“Two ravens,” Dean tells him. “Some… Muninn, and this other dude—”  
  
“Huginn.”  
  
“Yeah.” Dean licks his lip. “Sammy told me about Muninn. He’d seen these ravens that kept coming back the first two weeks, when this whole thing started. You know anything about this?”  
  
“They’re Odin’s, Huginn and Muninn,” Bobby replies. “Huginn is for thought and Muninn for memory; but apart from that, I got nothin’. Kinda explains your situation, though. You with amnesia, and Sam in a coma. You lost conscious memory, he lost conscious thought. You say you chose Huginn, right?”  
  
“I did.” Dean ponders over it, trying to make sense out of it. “I still don’t get it,” he says. “The case that me and Sammy took before the shit hit the fan was… it had nothing to do with this.” Sam squirms, and Dean places a hand on his chest. “You think…  _Odin_  has got anything to do with this?”  
  
“I don’t think it’s the real god,” Bobby says, “’cause what I know about them is that they eat folks. Doesn’t match what we’re looking at here.”  
  
“I saw a zombie,” Dean supplies. “Holding the birds. And he spoke in some whacky-ass riddles.”  
  
“Like?”  
  
Dean squints, trying to remember the zombie's words. “He… uh, something about being lost and finding Sam. And knowing him… or something.”  
  
“Makes sense,” Bobby says, shrugging his shoulders, eyes still on the road. “The spell broke when you got reunited with Sam, and you did have to fight a lot of battles to get to him—you didn’t know him, technically.”  
  
“I don’t know…” Dean tells Bobby unsurely. “Why the two of us, then? The others… they were dead when they entered that graveyard.”  
  
“Did you see which grave they were all visiting?”  
  
“Not really. Should it matter?”  
  
“I think it does,” Bobby replies. “I’ll look for some lore in that direction when we get out of this mess.”  
  
“Yeah, we will,” Dean tells him. He leans forward and places a hand on Cas’s shoulder. “And when we’re done with that, I’ll make this up to you too,” he tells his angel.   
  
He doesn’t get a reply. Just a tired, tilted smile, and then a hand comes to hold his through the gap between the seats. Cas still seems out of it, and Dean sits back, little finger still entwined with Cas’s, never leaving contact.  
  
“How’s he doing back there?” Bobby asks Dean.  
  
Dean looks down at Sam, who is resting with the top of his head against Dean’s thigh. He feels warm against Dean’s jeans, and as Dean brushes a palm over his forehead, it comes back bone dry. He sighs, cupping the cheek of his shaking brother and dabbing his face with the bandanna again. “Not good, Bobby.”  
  
“The hospital is still a few miles away,” Bobby replies. “It’s gonna take us a while to get there.” He pauses. “Ain’t like we have another solution though, do we?”  
  
Dean’s about to reply when Sam moans again. He bends over his little brother’s sleeping form, pushing back a few strands of hair from his forehead. Sam suddenly opens his eyes.   
  
“Hey, what happened?” Dean asks him.  
  
“D’n.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Sam squirms his way up into Dean's lap and promptly goes to sleep, like he used to when he was a baby, with his face resting against Dean’s stomach. Dean would have laughed if Sam weren’t poisoned, but he settles for carding his fingers through Sam’s hair.  
  


  
  
“Cas?”  
  
They’re still driving, and Sam has been asleep barely ten minutes, but Dean sits up straight when he hears his brother call out to the angel.   
  
“What is it, Sammy?” he asks him.  
  
“W’nna… talk t’Cas…”  
  
“He’s here.”  
  
“C-C’nt sss-see.”  
  
“I know, we’ll get you better.”  
  
“C-Cas?”  
  
Cas actually makes an effort to turn around. “Yes, Sam.”  
  
“D’n rr-rreeeeeally loves ya.” Sam lets out a small laugh. “L-Lots… like…”  
  
“I know.”  
  
Dean feels the warmth rising up his cheeks. “Sam, go to sleep, man,” he says.  
  
“Nnno, D’n.”  
  
“Sam!”  
  
“Yer-yyer boyf-ffriend can flyyyy,” Sam replies, positively giggling.  
  
“Seriously, man. I’m gonna kill you.”  
  
Sam stiffens on Dean’s lap, and Dean bites his lip. “Sorry, Sammy, I—”  
  
“N-No,” Sam whispers, his throat sounding raw and dry, “’M s’rry,”  
  
“Sammy,” Dean warns him, smoothing a finger over his forehead. “Shut up and get some rest.”  
  
“M’ – M’…” Sam’s lip quivers, “a m-m’nster.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“S-S’rry.. pl-pl’se.”  
  
“Sam,” Dean tells him, his heart and soul tired and miserable as he strokes his brother’s hair back. “You’re not thinking straight. It’s the poison. If you get some rest until we reach the hospital, you’ll feel better.”  
  
“M’n… m’nster… D-D’n…”  
  
Dean leans back against his seat and drags his hand down his stubbly face. He wants this to be over. He wants this all to be over. He just wants to get back to the life he had before all of this. Before that psycho creature that made him choose. Before Hell. Before everything.  
  
What wouldn’t he give for that? What wouldn’t he willingly let go of?  
  
His thoughts are interrupted when there’s a loud bang and a crash, and then nothing.

  
Sam can feel Dean’s jeans leave an imprint on his cheek. When he was a child, he’d lie down in Dean’s lap just for this; and well, because it was comfortable too  
  
There are fingers in his hair. Dean. Dean thinks Sam’s a monster and Sam is, Sam is, Sam is a monster.   
  
 _Monstermonstermonstermosnter._  
  
Madison is standing before him, her beautiful eyes filling with tears as she looks down at the bullet hole that Sam put in her _. Why would you do this?_  she asks him.  _Why?_  
  
 _I don’t know,_  he tells her.  _I wouldn’t. But I’m a monster._  
  
She laughs.  _Worse than me,_  she says.  _You deserved to die._  
  
“D-D’n…”  
  
Voices, Dean’s hands. Sam’s eyes shut and open, and he can see patterns in the upholstery like blurry rainbows and… and zebras and… and…  
  
The next second, it’s all gone. And Sam’s flying, flying…  _black, white, red, blue, green…_  flying.  
  
“Dean!”  
  
Someone’s calling out to Dean, anguished, and there’s a laugh. A huge, maniacal laugh. A woman. A woman laughs, and Sam turns around to see a blur of tan coats, and the shine of a blade.  
  
More laughter. “Look at you,” the woman says, a deadly caress in her voice, “so pathetic.”  
  
 _Pathetic monster. Monster._  
  
Silver glints in Sam’s eyes, and he reaches to it. The woman materialises before him, smile wide, but before she can move, Sam is sitting up, pushing the blade through flesh and skin. The warm blood rushes, waterfall-like, her eyes lighting up like a jack-o’-lantern, pretty and childlike and haunting and Sam is thirsty… so thirsty…  
  
 _“Sam?”_  
  
 _“Sam!”_  
  
Panicked cries.  
  
 _“Dean! Cas! BALLS… Cas!”_  
  
Sam blinks. Someone holds his face.  _“Sam? Sam, ya listenin’?”_  Fingers on his throat.  
  
 _“Bobby.”_  
  
 _“Cas, keep pumpin’. I’ll be there.”_  There are more hands.  _“Sam?”_  
  
Sam opens his mouth to speak.  _Save Dean. He’s not a monster._  But there’s bile filling his mouth and someone’s holding him up, the puking making his stomach and throat and nails and hair burn, and he wants to die, he wants to  _diediedie_. He spits out strings of bile as more rushes up into his mouth and nose, and he can feel a fist thumping his back… he’s pulled away, and laid down slowly… he turns…  
  
Empty green eyes.   
  
Dean faces him with empty green eyes. Blood. The sun is flashing. Sam feels like he’ll puke again.  
  
 _“Dean!”_  Tan trenchcoat. Castiel. Dean loves Cas. So much.  _“Dean!”_  
  
The cries are anguished. Dean doesn’t move, doesn’t blink.  
  
The blackness whispers to Sam, reminds him of Ruby.  _Come to me,_  it says.  _Come to me._  
  
 _Go away,_  he says.  
  
 _This is safe,_  it replies.   
  
There are wings.  _He chose me,_  says the eagle as it lands.  _He chose me over you. Over you._  
  
 _Monster._  
  
 _Come to me…_  
  
Sam blinks.  
  
 _Come to me…_  
  
The last thing he sees is a pair of rotting, yellowing eyes, irises green, and Dean is there and not blinking and…  
  
 _Come to me…_  
  
Sam obeys the voice.  
  
0  
  
It’s dark, dark in the night, when Sam meets Dean. The merry-go-round doesn’t spin and the swings are still, and Sam and Dean are sitting quiet, side-by-side, shoulders touching. Sam doesn’t know why he’s here. He didn’t even expect to see Dean here, but now he wants to wake up and go back, have a good look at his brother.  
  
 _Sam_. Dean’s voice is gentle when he calls out Sam’s name, and the tone sends shivers down Sam’s spine. He glances at Dean and looks back at the merry-go-round.   
  
 _Huginn and Muninn?_  He asks Dean.  _The real shit?_  
  
 _Yep. It wasn’t Lilith, though she and Ruby took full advantage of the situation. Bobby reckons the spell broke when we found you._  
  
 _Should have guessed._  
  
 _How could you have?_  
  
Sam chuckles.  _I knew Lilith wasn’t good enough for mythology._  
  
It is odd without the customary cawing of the ravens, but Sam doesn’t miss them.   
  
 _I gotta go, man,_  Dean says suddenly, without preamble.  
  
 _What?_  
  
He smiles—a smile matching the way he’d said Sam’s name first—and Sam realises what he’s talking about.  
  
 _Let me go,_  Dean says, before Sam can speak.  _I don’t want you to give up your life again. Not for me._  
  
What if you’re the only one who’s worth that? Sam wants to ask, but he doesn’t _. No,_  he says simply.  _I can’t do that._  
  
 _A dying man’s wish._  
  
 _I disregarded your last one._  
  
Dean isn’t amused, but Sam supposes it wasn’t funny anyway. Dean takes a sharp breath.  _I need to do this, Sammy._  
  
 _What reaper are you talking to?_  
  
 _No one. Only you,_  Dean tells him.  
  
 _No._  
  
 _Sam—_  
  
 _What am I supposed to do?_  Sam’s voice cracks, and he clenches his jaw, angry, so, so angry. No, not after all this—no. No. Dean doesn’t get to do this. Dean doesn’t get to leave, and then come back, and then leave again. This is not fair. This is so fucking selfish. So selfish.  
  
 _You killed Lilith,_  Dean tells him.  _God knows how you did it, but you did. You—we stopped the Apocalypse._  
  
 _So your life has no meaning now?_  
  
Dean’s face falls.  _There’s a lot of pain._  
  
 _Where?_  
  
 _I got hit bad, Sammy,_  he says.  _Nothing they can do._  
  
 _No._  Sam’s vision blurs and before him, Dean’s face doubles, shimmers, and trembles.  _No. No._  His chin quivers, and he can feel his eyes well over, tears trailing down his cheeks.   
  
Dean looks at him a moment, his own eyes filling up, and he’s pulling Sam into a hug. Sam smells the Impala, leather and motor oil and gunpowder. He buries his face into the crook of Dean’s neck and clutches onto Dean’s shirt, because he won’t let go. Won’t let Dean leave.  _N-No._  His voice is barely a whisper, sobs overtaking him, and he’s holding Dean to himself, fighting against any and every god out there. No. No. No! He wants to shake Dean, and he wants to scream until his throat hurts and until his lungs fall out of his chest cavity. He wants to die right along with Dean because this is not fair. This is so not fair.  
  
Dean runs a hand over Sam’s hair. Once, twice, and he pulls away, eyes bloodshot, fingers wiping at the wetness on Sam’s cheeks.  _You know where to find me, yeah?_  
  
 _Don’t leave._  
  
 _Never._  
  
And he’s gone.


	16. Chapter 16

 

 

  
  


  
Sam takes a while to wake up. They tell him he was out for three days, but for him, it’s a while. It is, in fact, a lifetime of darkness and nightmares—and of calling out to Dean. For the rest of the world, though, it’s only three days, so Sam just goes with it. Three days. So three days it is. He wakes up to Bobby, and Dean’s angel Castiel. There is no Dean. No Dean like he was hoping there would be. And the whole ordeal wasn’t a lie, like he wanted it to be.   
  
He mainly remembers Cas through a haze of colours and delirium and blood. Though Cas looks tired and like the world has come crumbling down on his shoulders, he smiles a kind smile at Sam, like they always knew each other.   
  
They kinda did. Through Dean. Through Dean’s words, that both of them held precious, and still hold precious.   
  
Sam doesn’t want to think of everything he’s lost, but the weight of it pours down on him day and night until he thinks he’ll burst—explode from the mere grief and stress that encircles it. He wants to rage and scream at the unfairness of it all—at losing Dean to a fucking car crash, of all things. They were close; so close. After six months… six months…    
  
On the second day that he’s awake, Sam’s taken to the morgue to see his brother. They’ve put him in one of those steel drawers, like the ones that Sam’s seen all his life, with the victims of the cases that he and Dean solved.   
  
When they pull Dean out, Sam almost laughs. Almost laughs at the tag on Dean’s toe, at the white cloth covering his modesty, and at the large Y-shaped incision on his torso. At Dean’s lifeless eyes and his bloodless mouth and his pale, waxy skin.    
  
Dean. Dean Winchester—Sam’s big brother, his hero, his best friend, his heart and his soul—is  _dead_. Dean is dead. Dean is gone. Forever.   
  
_You know where to find me, yeah?_  
  
_Don’t leave._  
  
_Never._  
  
The words keep playing in Sam’s head, over and over and again and again, until it’s roaring in his ears, until each and every part of him is resonating with it. Until his eyes are dripping tears, and he’s folding forward in his wheelchair, bracing a hand against Dean’s cold cheek and pressing his lips to his temple, wetting his brother’s forehead with the dampness that’s falling out of his eyes.   
  
“Thank you,” he whispers to Dean, between sniffles and tears. “Thank you.”   
  
Dean doesn’t respond, but Sam can feel Castiel’s hand on his shoulder, and a shudder of warmth runs through his body.   
  
_Anytime, little brother._  
  
0   
  
Dean’s funeral is small, but really, it’s the biggest one there is, because the people who bid him goodbye are his whole world. Sam invites Brenda and Samantha, having learned from Cas about how much Dean loved them too, and Brenda shows up with her ukulele.    
  
“He loved Uke Hour,” she sighs, tears trailing down her face, her lips smiling at the fond memory.    
  
The pyre burns bright and hot, Brenda strumming “Stairway to Heaven” while Sam sits in his wheelchair, staring into the flames, and thinking of how, after having to bid an impromptu goodbye to his brother six months ago, he’s had to come back and say goodbye again.   
  
His eyes burn—whether from grief or the heat of the fire, he doesn’t know—but Cas’s hand is on his shoulder again and he turns around to see Castiel’s downturned mouth and sad eyes, and wonders if angels can cry. Castiel doesn’t, though, and they stay until the fire has completely burned down, until there’s nothing more, and then they go back to Bobby’s place and get drunk until they’re passed out. Castiel too.   
  
The next morning, Sam collects Dean’s ashes and puts them in an urn. He scatters them at their mother’s grave, wondering if Dean’s met her in Heaven yet. He hopes Dean’s there, happy and safe, and he hopes that sooner, rather than later, he can get there too.   
  
0   
  
“He thought I was a monster,” Sam tells Cas one day, when they’re at lunch together. Bobby’s gone to help Rufus with some research. He looks up at Cas, who’s crunching on a lettuce leaf as if it’s the most wonderful thing on this planet. “He thought I was a monster, right?”   
  
Cas’s eyes look sympathetic when he downs the lettuce. Angels aren’t supposed to eat, Sam remembers. But Cas isn’t much of an angel anymore. Just like Sam isn’t much of a person anymore, after Dean.   
  
“He had the highest regard for you,” Cas replies, at long last.   
  
“But he thought—”   
  
“You were the person he missed the most, even when he didn’t have any memories of you,” says Cas. “He remembered you even before anyone had to remind him.”   
  
“He tell you that?”   
  
“No, Sam,” says Cas. “But he felt empty, and he missed you. He just didn’t know it was you, specifically. And after that first dream…” A fond smile appears on his lips.    
  
“Was he pissed?” Sam swallows lightly. “At the demon blood?”   
  
“He was angry, yes,” Cas replies. “But that didn’t stop him from cherishing you and loving you more than anything I’ve ever seen.”   
  
Sam chuckles. “He loved you too, Cas.”   
  
“You told me.”   
  
“Really? When?”   
  
“You were very delirious at that time. I don’t think Dean appreciated it very much.”   
  
They’ve said Dean’s name for the first time that day, and the pain that envelopes Sam is intense, coursing through every neuron and threatening to take him over. However, he swallows it back and eats some more salad. Then he looks up at Cas again. “Thank you, Cas.”   
  
“Why?”   
  
“For giving up…  _everything_  for Dean. I never could do that. I was selfish. Dean could never rely on me for… anything.” His heart is sinking even as he says it, but he knows it’s the truth.    
  
Cas shakes his head. “You did all that, and much more, Sam Winchester. I wouldn’t have even said this a few months ago, had Dean not taught me how to be human. But you did much more. And,” he adds, “I wouldn’t have done this had your brother not deserved every bit of it. Both you and your brother are worthy of the best things. You should know that.”   
  
Sam nods, eyes filling, and before he knows it, Cas is sitting next to him and he’s hugging his brother’s angel, his tears soaking into Cas’s trenchcoat as he thanks God and every entity out there for a brother as amazing as Dean. Twenty-five years of knowing Dean was never enough. It will never be enough.   
  
0   
  
Sam and Bobby look up Huginn and Muninn and Odin and Norse zombies, and come up with the best answer that they can: a  _draugr_. It’s supposed to be the corpse of a Viking and according to lore, it has supernatural capabilities. If disturbed in its grave, it wakes up and kills. It’s immune to being burned.   
  
This is the only information they get, and the trail falls dead from thereon. Sam visits the grave again with Cas, finds nothing except that the other victims were siblings too. That explains that he and Dean had suffered a similar fate, but not entirely. Sam still doesn’t know why he and Dean were buried and not killed like the others, or why the  _draugr_  offered a choice between the twin ravens, or how this is linked to Odin. He doesn’t know why he and his brother were apart for six months, Dean’s conscious memories gone and Sam’s conscious thoughts gone, and he doesn’t have answers for anything. After a while, Sam mostly learns to accept this, all of this, but he doesn’t think he can ever get closure on it. He can never get over not entirely understanding what happened to them.   
  
He decides to live with it. Dean wouldn’t want him to destroy himself over it. He did it once, and he won’t do it again because the price he paid for doing it the one time was losing his brother. Bobby and Cas say it’s not Sam’s fault, but he feels that if he’d just come clean to Dean—if he’d just not lied, or listened to Dean and not trusted Ruby—Dean would be alive, so this is on him and it’s  _all_  on him.   
  
Cas slowly loses his angelic capabilities and his body regresses to a human form, until one evening, a bug bites him on his leg and he can’t stop scratching. Sam and Bobby offer him whiskey and they get drunk.   
  
For a long time, it’s hard to believe that Dean’s gone. Sam goes back, over and over, to that playground, like he’d done through the intense withdrawal that the hospital could never figure out how to handle. They didn’t even send him to rehab because eventually, they started believing he’d been having delayed reactions to the devil’s weed— _Datura_. There’s nothing else that they can find in Sam’s bloodstream, nothing they will ever know about.    
  
Dean never does come back to meet Sam, though. He never comes back to the playground, and Sam knows he lied, and wishes he hadn’t. It just hurts so freaking much that Dean lied, but Sam reckons this is his payback for lying to Dean.   
  
The hospital insists on physical therapy because Sam can’t walk, and some of his motor skills are lacking because of his six months of coma. They move Sam’s appointments to Sioux Falls General, and Cas takes Sam to therapy every day. They bond, mainly over Dean, and Dean’s favourite things and favourite food. After that, they bond over each other.   
  
It’s almost a year since Dean’s death when Sam truly understands what Dean had meant, when he said he’d always be there. Because even though Dean’s gone, Sam can see him everywhere. In Bobby’s house; underneath the Impala, working on her in his greasy overalls; inside the Impala, singing his heart out; and in Cas’s eyes and his words. It's in the humanity that he’s learned from Dean, and in the air and in Dean’s things, and then, in himself—always in himself. The things that Dean’s said to him, taught him, about sacrifice and loving and letting go, and just Dean.    
  
_Just Dean._  
  
When he understands, when he truly understands, Sam just grits his teeth against the tears and then laughs, vowing to smack Dean upside the head once he’s in Heaven. Until then, he takes in every bit of his brother he can find, and he knows—he just knows that Dean will never leave.   
  
Eighteen months after Dean’s death, something goes wrong again.     
  
It’s a clear, bright morning and Castiel comes to Sam’s room with a cup of tea. He smiles, sits down, and hands the cup to Sam. “I found Earl Grey at the supermarket yesterday. I think you will enjoy it.”     
  
Sam accepts the cup, but then does a double take when he looks properly at Castiel’s face. He notices his bloodshot eyes and the dark shadows underneath, and when he excuses himself from Castiel. He stumbles to the living room to greet Bobby, he notices the same on Bobby. In a flash, his memories are going back to those godforsaken days at that dingy motel where Bobby had come and tried to kill him, and Sam now knows what to do.   
  
He can’t walk very well yet, but he’s out of Bobby’s house in the next few minutes. He dumps his things into the Impala, clutches Dean’s amulet to himself, and pulls away, not even looking back when Castiel and Bobby come running out of the house. They don’t catch up, though, they never do.   
  
It takes eighteen months for Sam to realise that it was always him and Dean, and nobody else.   
  
He keeps driving into the horizon, into oblivion.

 

  
_And if you listen very hard_  
_The tune will come to you at last._  
_When all are one and one is all_  
_To be a rock and not to roll._

_And she's buying a stairway to heaven._

 

**The End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew!
> 
> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Hope the ride was worth it. :)
> 
> Comments and kudos are awesome, and both of us have worked hard on this fic. Thank you so much!
> 
> Amber and Pooja <333
> 
> Amber's Tumblr   
>  Pooja's Tumblr

**Author's Note:**

> So that's the first chapter! Hope it intrigued you enough to stay on and read. :)


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